Galaxy and Mass Assembly (GAMA): maximum-likelihood determination of the luminosity function and its evolution

Loveday, J.; Norberg, P.; Baldry, I.K.; Bland-Hawthorn, J.; Brough, S.; Brown, M.J.I.; Driver, S.P.; Kelvin, L.S.; Phillipps, S.

Abstract

We describe modifications to the joint stepwise maximum-likelihood method of Cole in order to simultaneously fit the Galaxy and Mass Assembly II galaxy luminosity function (LF), corrected for radial density variations, and its evolution with redshift. The whole sample is reasonably well fitted with luminosity (Qe) and density (Pe) evolution parameters Qe, Pe ≈ 1.0, 1.0 but with significant degeneracies characterized by Qe ≈ 1.4 − 0.4Pe. Blue galaxies exhibit larger luminosity density evolution than red galaxies, as expected. We present the evolution-corrected r-band LF for the whole sample and for blue and red subsamples, using both Petrosian and Sérsic magnitudes. Petrosian magnitudes miss a substantial fraction of the flux of de Vaucouleurs profile galaxies: the Sérsic LF is substantially higher than the Petrosian LF at the bright end.

Citation

Loveday, J., Norberg, P., Baldry, I., Bland-Hawthorn, J., Brough, S., Brown, M., …Phillipps, S. (2015). Galaxy and Mass Assembly (GAMA): maximum-likelihood determination of the luminosity function and its evolution. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 451(2), 1540-1552. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stv1013

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: May 3, 2015
• Online Publication Date: Jun 5, 2015
• Publication Date: Aug 1, 2015
• Deposit Date: Feb 3, 2016
• Publicly Available Date: Feb 11, 2016
• Journal: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
• Print ISSN: 0035-8711
• Electronic ISSN: 1365-2966
• Publisher: Royal Astronomical Society
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 451
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 1540-1552
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stv1013
• Keywords: Galaxies: evolution, Galaxies: luminosity function, mass function, Galaxies: statistics.
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1393224