On the dependence between UV luminosity and Lyα equivalent width in high-redshift galaxies

We show that with the simple assumption of no correlation between the Ly alpha equivalent width and the ultraviolet (UV) luminosity of a galaxy the observed distribution of high-redshift galaxies in an equivalent width-absolute UV magnitude plane can be reproduced. We further show that there is no dependence between Ly alpha equivalent width and Ly alpha luminosity in a sample of Ly alpha emitters. The test was expanded to Lyman-break galaxies and again no dependence was found. Simultaneously, we show that a recently proposed lack of large equivalent width, UV-bright galaxies can be explained by a simple observational effect, based on too small survey volumes.