UV LUMINOSITY FUNCTIONS AT REDSHIFTS z ∼ 4 TO z ∼ 10: 10,000 GALAXIES FROM HST LEGACY FIELDS

By R. Bouwens, G. Illingworth, P. Oesch, M. Trenti, I. Labbé, L. Bradley, M. Carollo, P. V. van Dokkum, V. González, B. Holwerda and 4 more. 2014

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The remarkable Hubble Space Telescope (HST) data sets from the CANDELS, HUDF09, HUDF12, ERS, and BoRG/HIPPIES programs have allowed us to map the evolution of the rest-frame UV luminosity function (LF) from z ∼ 10 ?> to z ∼ 4 ?> . We develop new color criteria that more optimally utilize the full wavelength coverage from the optical, near-IR, and mid-IR observations over our search fields, while simultaneously minimizing the incompleteness and eliminating redshift gaps. We have identified 5859, 3001, 857, 481, 217, and 6 galaxy candidates at z ∼ 4 ?> , z ∼ 5 ?> , z ∼ 6 ?> , z ∼ 7 ?> , z ∼ 8 ?> , and z ∼ 10 ?> , respectively, from the ∼1000 arcmin2 area covered by these data sets. This sample of >10,000 galaxy candidates at z ≥ 4 ?> is by far the largest assembled to date with HST. The selection of z ∼ ?> 4–8 candidates over the five CANDELS fields allows us to assess the cosmic variance; the largest variations are at z ≥ 7 ?> . Our new LF determinations at z ∼ 4 ?> and z ∼ 5 ?> span a 6 mag baseline and reach to –16 AB mag. These determinations agree well with previous estimates, but the larger samples and volumes probed here result in a more reliable sampling of > L * ?> galaxies and allow us to reassess the form of the UV LFs. Our new LF results strengthen our earlier findings to 3.4 &sgr; ?> significance for a steeper faint-end slope of the UV LF at z > 4 ?> , with α evolving from &agr; = − 1.64 ± 0.04 ?> at z ∼ 4 ?> to &agr; = − 2.06 ± 0.13 ?> at z ∼ 7 ?> (and &agr; = − 2.02 ± 0.23 ?> at z ∼ 8 ?> ), consistent with that expected from the evolution of the halo mass function. We find less evolution in the characteristic magnitude M* from z ∼ 7 ?> to z ∼ 4 ; ?> the observed evolution in the LF is now largely represented by changes in φ * ?> . No evidence for a non-Schechter-like form to the z ∼ 4–8 LFs is found. A simple conditional LF model based on halo growth and evolution in the M/L ratio ( ∝ ( 1 + z ) − 1.5 ) ?> of halos provides a good representation of the observed evolution.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Instrumentation

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Citations in the corpus

Lyα and C iii] emission in z = 7–9 Galaxies: accelerated reionization around luminous star-forming systems? (2016, methodology): “…large abundance of faint z ∼> 6 galaxies identified photometrically with the WFC3/IR camera on the Hubble Space Telescope (e.g., McLure et al. 2013; Bouwens et al. 2015b; Finkelstein et al. 2015) suggests that the ionizing output of star forming systems may be sufficient to complete reionization…”
Constraining the mass of light bosonic dark matter using SDSS Lyman-α forest (2017, background): “Recent estimations of the high-redshift UV-luminosity function (Bouwens et al. 2015; Livermore et al. 2017), as derived from deep observations such as the Hubble Frontier Fields, MNRAS 000, 1–11 (2017) are still subject to large uncertainties (Bouwens et al. 2017) but they do not clearly point…”
Cosmic Dawn (CoDa): the first radiation-hydrodynamics simulation of reionization and galaxy formation in the Local Universe (2015, result): “The latter are taken from Bouwens et al. (2015) and Finkelstein et al. (2015), which have been shown to be in broad agreement with a number of other studies including Oesch et al. (2013) and Bowler et al. (2015).”
Stellar population effects on the inferred photon density at reionization (2015, methodology): “…arising from the observed 1500Å luminosity functions of Lyman break c© 2015 RAS, MNRAS 000, 1–17 galaxies as a function of redshift (Reddy & Steidel 2009; Bouwens et al. 2015), to the ionizing photon flux inferred by Becker & Bolton (2013) based on measurements of the Lyman-α forest at z ∼ 2− 5.”
Great Optically Luminous Dropout Research Using Subaru HSC (GOLDRUSH). I. UV Luminosity Functions at $z \sim 4-7$ Derived with the Half-Million Dropouts on the 100 deg$^2$ Sky (2017, methodology): “We then select high-z galaxy candidates with the same selection criteria and calculate the selection completeness as a function of magnitude and redshift, C(m,z), averaged over UV slope β weighted with the β distribution of Bouwens et al. (2014).”
A unified multiwavelength model of galaxy formation (2015, positive): “…data are from Arnouts et al. (2005) (crosses),Reddy & Steidel (2009) (filled circles) and Sawicki & Thompson (2006) (open triangles) atz = 3, and Bouwens et al. (2015) (filled circles), Finkelstein et al. (2015) (open triangles) and Shimasaku et al. (2005) (crosses) atz = 6. to the new model.”
THE EVOLUTION OF THE GALAXY STELLAR MASS FUNCTION AT z = 4–8: A STEEPENING LOW-MASS-END SLOPE WITH INCREASING REDSHIFT (2015, background): “…(UV) luminosity function (e.g., Bouwens et al. 2011; Oesch et al. 2012; Schenker et al. 2013b; Lorenzoni et al. 2013; Finkelstein et al. 2015; Bouwens et al. 2015), the rest-frame UV spectral slope (e.g., Finkelstein et al. 2012; Bouwens et al. 2014), and the cosmic star formation rate…”
Conditions for Reionizing the Universe with a Low Galaxy Ionizing Photon Escape Fraction (2019, methodology): “One key difference between the results of Bouwens et al. (2015a) and our own is that our inferred emissivity increases with increasing redshift over 6<z<10, which is a consequence of our lower average escape fraction over this epoch (see Section 5.2).”
What does the first highly redshifted 21-cm detection tell us about early galaxies? (2018, methodology): “First, we present our reference model fits to UVLFs drawn from Bouwens et al. (2015b) and Oesch et al. (2018) at 4 z 10 as dotted lines, neglecting the EDGES measurement entirely.”
The z = 9-10 galaxy population in the Hubble Frontier Fields and CLASH surveys: the z = 9 luminosity function and further evidence for a smooth decline in ultraviolet luminosity density at z≥ 8 (2016, background): “The LF at redshift z = 6− 8 has been the subject of numerous studies in the recent literature, and is now largely well-understood at magnitudes fainter than M1500 ' −21 (see McLure et al. 2013; Finkelstein et al. 2014; Bowler et al. 2014, 2015; Bouwens et al. 2015).”
The many flavours of photometric redshifts (2018, background): “90], and the Lyman break above z > 8 [91].”
21CMMC: an MCMC analysis tool enabling astrophysical parameter studies of the cosmic 21 cm signal (2015, methodology): “1, we provide a schematic picture of our single ionizing galaxy population compared to the observed non-ionizing (∼ 1500 Å) UV luminosity function at z = 8 of Bouwens et al. (2014).”