The distribution of [o II] emission-line widths of Las Campanas Redshift survey galaxies

Michael Blanton, Huan Lin

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    Abstract

    We present a simple functional form for the joint distribution of R-band luminosity and [O ii] γ3727 emissionline equivalent widths of galaxies and show that this form is a good fit to the galaxies in the Las Campanas Redshift Survey. We find a relationship between [O ii] equivalent width W and R-band luminosity L of the R approximate form A )(LR/LR, ∗ )-2/2, where LR, ∗ (W)∼ (10 is the characteristic luminosity in the Schechter function. Because this joint distribution yields information about the relationship between stellar mass in a galaxy and its recent star formation rate, it can be useful for testing theories of galaxy formation. Furthermore, understanding this joint distribution locally will make it easier to interpret the evolution of [O ii] emission-line widths to higher redshifts.

    Original languageEnglish (US)
    Pages (from-to)L125-L128
    JournalAstrophysical Journal Letters
    Volume543
    Issue number2
    DOIs
    StatePublished - Nov 10 2000

    Keywords

    • Fundamental parameters-galaxies
    • Galaxies
    • Luminosity function
    • Mass function- galaxies
    • Statistics

    ASJC Scopus subject areas

    • Astronomy and Astrophysics
    • Space and Planetary Science

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