The Sloan Digital Sky Survey u-band Galaxy Survey: Luminosity functions and evolution

I. K. Baldry, K. Glazebrook, T. Budavári, D. J. Eisenstein, J. Annis, N. A. Bahcall, M. R. Blanton, J. Brinkmann, I. Csabai, T. M. Heckman, H. Lin, J. Loveday, R. C. Nichol, D. P. Schneider

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    Abstract

    We construct and analyse a u-band selected galaxy sample from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Southern Survey, which covers 275 deg2. The sample includes 43223 galaxies with spectroscopic redshifts in the range 0.005 < z < 0.3 and with 14.5 < u < 20.5. The signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio in the u-band Petrosian aperture is improved by co-adding multiple epochs of imaging data and by including sky-subtraction corrections. Luminosity functions for the near-UV 0.1u band (λ ≈ 322 ± 26 nm) are determined in redshift slices of width 0.02, which show a highly significant evolution in M* of -0.8 ± 0.1 mag between z = 0 and 0.3; with M* - 5 log h70 = -18.84 ± 0.05(AB mag), log φ* = -2.06 ± 0.03 (h703 Mpc-3) and log ρL = 19.11 ± 0.02 (h 70 W Hz-1 Mpc-3) at z = 0.1. The faint-end slope determined for z < 0.06 is given by α = -1.05 ± 0.08. This is in agreement with recent determinations from the Galaxy Evolution Explorer at shorter wavelengths. Comparing our z < 0.3 luminosity density measurements with 0.2 < z < 1.2 from Classifying Objects by Medium Band Observations in 17 Filters (COMBO-17), we find that the 280-nm density evolves as ρL α (1 + z)β with β = 2.1 ± 0.2; and find no evidence for any change in slope over this redshift range. By comparing with other measurements of cosmic star formation history, we estimate that the effective dust attenuation at 280 nm has increased by 0.8 ± 0.3 mag between z = 0 and 1.

    Original languageEnglish (US)
    Pages (from-to)441-456
    Number of pages16
    JournalMonthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
    Volume358
    Issue number2
    DOIs
    StatePublished - Apr 1 2005

    Keywords

    • Galaxies: evolution
    • Galaxies: fundamental parameters
    • Galaxies: luminosity function, mass function
    • Surveys
    • Ultraviolet: galaxies

    ASJC Scopus subject areas

    • Astronomy and Astrophysics
    • Space and Planetary Science

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