The Luminosity Function of Galaxies in SDSS Commissioning Data

By M. Blanton, J. J. Dalcanton, D. Eisenstein, J. Loveday, M. Strauss, Mark SubbaRao, D. Weinberg, Jay Anderson, James Annis, N. Bahcall and 59 more. 2000

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In the course of its commissioning observations, the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) has produced one of the largest redshift samples of galaxies selected from CCD images. Using 11,275 galaxies complete to r* = 17.6 over 140 deg2, we compute the luminosity function of galaxies in the r* band over a range -23 < M < -16 (for h = 1). The result is well-described by a Schechter function with parameters ϕ* = (1.46 ± 0.12) × 10-2 h3 Mpc-3, M* = -20.83 ± 0.03, and α = -1.20 ± 0.03. The implied luminosity density in r* is j ≈ (2.6 ± 0.3) × 108h L⊙ Mpc-3. We find that the surface brightness selection threshold has a negligible impact for M < -18. Using subsets of the data, we measure the luminosity function in the u*, g*, i*, and z* bands as well; the slope at low luminosities ranges from α = -1.35 to α = -1.2. We measure the bivariate distribution of r* luminosity with half-light surface brightness, intrinsic g*-r* color, and morphology. In agreement with previous studies, we find that high surface brightness, red, highly concentrated galaxies are on average more luminous than low surface brightness, blue, less concentrated galaxies. An important feature of the SDSS luminosity function is the use of Petrosian magnitudes, which measure a constant fraction of a galaxy's total light regardless of the amplitude of its surface brightness profile. If we synthesize results for RGKC band or bj band using these Petrosian magnitudes, we obtain luminosity densities 2 times that found by the Las Campanas Redshift Survey in RGKC and 1.4 times that found by the Two Degree Field Galaxy Redshift Survey in bj. However, we are able to reproduce the luminosity functions obtained by these surveys if we also mimic their isophotal limits for defining galaxy magnitudes, which are shallower and more redshift dependent than the Petrosian magnitudes used by the SDSS.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/1179fcf2dbd2e5e78bb97d23e4a068d872f94e42

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Citations in the corpus

Analysis of Systematic Effects and Statistical Uncertainties in Angular Clustering of Galaxies from Early Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data (2001, methodology): “This pair of runs has been used in previous early SDSS papers analyzing the galaxy luminosity function (Blanton et al. 2001), number counts (Yasuda et al. 2001), and colors (Shimasaku et al. 2001; Strateva et al. 2001).”
The Luminosity, Stellar Mass, and Number Density Evolution of Field Galaxies of Known Morphology from z = 0.5 to 3 (2004, methodology): “Our use of η = 0.2 to define the radius of our galaxies is the same as that used by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey to measure magnitudes (e.g., Blanton et al. 2001).”
Observational constraints on growth of massive black holes (2002, unknown): “For comparison, the total luminosity density derived from SDSS is jg∗ = (2.8 ± 0.4) × 10 8h Lg∗,⊙ Mpc −3 (Blanton et al. 2001).”
Dark matter distribution in the Coma cluster from galaxy kinematics: breaking the mass-anisotropy degeneracy (2003, background): “Given that the closure mass-to-light ratio (critical density over luminosity density) in the blue band is roughly 1100 h70 to 10% accuracy, consistent with the recent estimates of luminosity density from the 2dFGRS (Norberg et al. 2002) and SDSS (Blanton et al. 2001) galaxy surveys (after correction”
Composite Quasar Spectra from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (2001, background): “1), which implies a host-M r{ \[21.7 galaxy magnitude of about (assuming a hostM r{ \[19.2 contribution of D10%)Èa moderately luminous value in the SDSS Ðlter system (Blanton et al. 2001).”
The Galaxy Luminosity Function and Luminosity Density at Redshift z = 0.1 (2002, methodology): “For comparison, we show in the same table the results of Blanton et al. (2001) andNorberg et al. (2002).”
A MaxBCG Catalog of 13,823 Galaxy Clusters from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (2007, methodology): “In this case, the number of galaxies and their distribution in r luminosity is taken from the measured SDSS galaxy luminosity function (Blanton et al. 2001, 2003c).”
The Kinematic Connection between absorbing Gas toward QSOs and Galaxies at Intermediate Redshift (2002, background): “With the exception of G1 1222+228, which has a luminosity of only 0.25L*, all of the galaxies are comparable to or more luminous than the present-day L* of MB ’ 19:5 (Folkes et al. 1999; Blanton et al. 2001).”
The Environmental Dependence of Galaxy Properties in the Local Universe: Dependences on Luminosity, Local Density, and System Richness (2004, methodology): “We select galaxies in the redshift range of 0.030 < z < 0.065, and the magnitude range of Mr < −19.4 which corresponds to Mr < M ∗ r + 2 (Blanton et al. 2001; for our cosmology, M∗r = −21.4) and construct the volume-limited sample as illustrated in Figure 1.”
CALIFA : a diameter-selected sample for an integral field spectroscopy galaxy survey (2014, background): “Indeed, Blanton et al. (2001) show that Petrosian magnitudes contain between 82% and 100% of the flux for a de Vaucouleurs and exponential profile, respectively.”