A New Constraint on the Ly$\alpha$ Fraction of UV Very Bright Galaxies
  at Redshift 7
  We study the extent to which very bright (-23.0 < MUV < -21.75) Lyman-break
selected galaxies at redshifts z~7 display detectable Lya emission. To explore
this issue, we have obtained follow-up optical spectroscopy of 9 z~7 galaxies
from a parent sample of 24 z~7 galaxy candidates selected from the 1.65 sq.deg
COSMOS-UltraVISTA and SXDS-UDS survey fields using the latest near-infrared
public survey data, and new ultra-deep Subaru z'-band imaging (which we also
present and describe in this paper). Our spectroscopy has yielded only one
possible detection of Lya at z=7.168 with a rest-frame equivalent width EW_0 =
3.7 (+1.7/-1.1) Angstrom. The relative weakness of this line, combined with our
failure to detect Lya emission from the other spectroscopic targets allows us
to place a new upper limit on the prevalence of strong Lya emission at these
redshifts. For conservative calculation and to facilitate comparison with
previous studies at lower redshifts, we derive a 1-sigma upper limit on the
fraction of UV bright galaxies at z~7 that display EW_0 > 50 Angstrom, which we
estimate to be < 0.23. This result may indicate a weak trend where the fraction
of strong Lya emitters ceases to rise, and possibly falls between z~6 and z~7.
Our results also leave open the possibility that strong Lya may still be more
prevalent in the brightest galaxies in the reionization era than their fainter
counterparts. A larger spectroscopic sample of galaxies is required to derive a
more reliable constraint on the neutral hydrogen fraction at z~7 based on the
Lya fraction in the bright galaxies.
