The Lyman Alpha Reference Sample XII: Morphology of extended Lyman alpha emission in star-forming galaxies

We use Hubble space telescope data of 45 nearby star-forming galaxies to investigate properties of Lyman-alpha (Ly$α$) halos, Ly$α$ morphology, and the star-forming characteristics of galaxies. We study how the morphology of Ly$α$ emission is related to other Ly$α$ observables. Furthermore, we study the interdependencies of Ly$α$ morphological quantities. We studied the spatial extent of Ly$α$ using surface brightness profiles in i) using circular apertures and ii) within faint Ly$α$ isophotes. We measured the average intensity and the size of the regions with a high star formation rate density. The morphology of the galaxies was quantified by computing centroid position, axis ratio, and position angle in the Ly$α$, ultraviolet continuum, and I band maps. We found that galaxies with more extended star-forming regions possess larger Ly$α$ halos. Furthermore, galaxies with more elongated Ly$α$ morphology are also more extended in Ly$α$. Our data suggest that Ly$α$ bright galaxies appear rounder in their Ly$α$ morphology, and there is less of a contribution from their Ly$α$ halo to their overall luminosity. We compared our results with studies at high redshift and found that whilst the Ly$α$ extent in the inner regions of the galaxies in our sample are similar to the high$-z$ Ly$α$ emitters (LAEs), Ly$α$ halos are more extended in high$-z$ LAEs. Our analysis suggests that the Ly$α$ morphology affects the measurement of other observable quantities concerning Ly$α$ emission, and some of the conclusions drawn from high redshift LAEs might be biased towards galaxies with specific Ly$α$ shapes. In particular, faint Ly$α$ emitters have larger Ly$α$ scale lengths and halo fractions. This implies that faint Ly$α$ emitters are harder to detect at high redshift than previously believed.