Wednesday

Studying lower-redshift analogs of the first galaxies is essential to unveil the details of galaxy formation and cosmic reionization, paving the way for a better interpretation of future observations of primeval galaxies with the James Webb Space Telescope.
In this talk I will present a thorough study of a recently discovered population of small, sub-L* star-forming galaxies at redshift z~2-4 that exhibit all the rest-frame properties expected for early galaxies in their first epoch of assembling and chemical enrichment. Primarily selected by their strong nebular emission in the UV (including CIII]1908, CIV1549 and OIII]1663) from thousands of galaxies in the VIMOS Ultra Deep Survey, these young low-mass systems are extremely metal-deficient galaxies that are likely experiencing their first significant starburst episode. I will discuss their rest-frame properties, including hard radiations field, Lyman-alpha emission, HST morphology, gas-phase metallicity and C/O abundance. Finally, I will compare their properties with that of galaxies observed at the edge of the reionization epoch, which pose interesting prospects for JWST studies.