Brightest high-z galaxies in RELICS clusters

We present here the z~6-8 candidate high-redshift galaxies from the Reionization Lensing Cluster Survey (RELICS), a Hubble and Spitzer Space Telescope survey of 41 massive galaxy clusters spanning an area of ~200arcmin^2^. These clusters were selected to be excellent lenses, and we find similar high-redshift sample sizes and magnitude distributions as the Cluster Lensing And Supernova survey with Hubble (CLASH).

We discover 257, 57, and eight candidate galaxies at z~6, 7, and 8 respectively, (322 in total). The observed (lensed) magnitudes of the z~6 candidates are as bright as AB mag ~23, making them among the brightest known at these redshifts, comparable with discoveries from much wider, blank-field surveys. RELICS demonstrates the efficiency of using strong gravitational lenses to produce high-redshift samples in the epoch of reionization.