A new multifield determination of the galaxy luminosity function at z = 7-9 incorporating the 2012 Hubble Ultra-Deep Field imaging

By R. McLure, J. Dunlop, R. Bowler, E. Curtis-Lake, M. Schenker, Richard S. Ellis, Brant Robertson, A. Koekemoer, A. B. Rogers, Yoshiaki Ono and 7 more. 2012

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We present a new determination of the ultraviolet (UV) galaxy luminosity function (LF) at redshift z ≃ 7 and 8, and a first estimate at z ≃ 9. An accurate determination of the form and evolution of the galaxy LF during this era is of key importance for improving our knowledge of the earliest phases of galaxy evolution and the process of cosmic reionization. Our analysis exploits to the full the new, deepest Wide Field Camera 3/infrared imaging from our Hubble Space Telescope (HST) Ultra-Deep Field 2012 (UDF12) campaign, with dynamic range provided by including a new and consistent analysis of all appropriate, shallower/wider area HST survey data. Our new measurement of the evolving LF at z ≃ 7 to 8 is based on a final catalogue of ≃600 galaxies, and involves a step-wise maximum-likelihood determination based on the photometric redshift probability distribution for each object; this approach makes full use of the 11-band imaging now available in the Hubble Ultra-Deep Field (HUDF), including the new UDF12 F140W data, and the latest Spitzer IRAC imaging. The final result is a determination of the z ≃ 7 LF extending down to UV absolute magnitudes M_1500 = −16.75 (AB mag) and the z ≃ 8 LF down to M_1500 = −17.00. Fitting a Schechter function, we find M*_1500 = −19.90^(+0.23)_(−0.28), log ϕ* = −2.96^(+0.18)_(−0.23) and a faint-end slope α = −1.90^(+0.14)_(−0.15) at z ≃ 7, and M*_1500 = −20.12^(+0.37)_(−0.48), log ϕ* = −3.35^(+0.28)_(−0.47) and α = −2.02^(+0.22)_(-0.23) at z ≃ 8. These results strengthen previous suggestions that the evolution at z > 7 appears more akin to ‘density evolution’ than the apparent ‘luminosity evolution’ seen at z ≃ 5 − 7. We also provide the first meaningful information on the LF at z ≃ 9, explore alternative extrapolations to higher redshifts, and consider the implications for the early evolution of UV luminosity density. Finally, we provide catalogues (including derived z_phot, M_1500 and photometry) for the most robust z ∼ 6.5-11.9 galaxies used in this analysis. We briefly discuss our results in the context of earlier work and the results derived from an independent analysis of the UDF12 data based on colour–colour selection.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/dee41954c5517b2ba76f033aa9c16978c777a47e

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Citations in the corpus

Constraining the galaxy–halo connection over the last 13.3 Gyr: star formation histories, galaxy mergers and structural properties (2017, methodology): “Observational data are from Bouwens et al. (2007, 2011, 2015, 2016); Bowler et al. (2014); Finkelstein et al. (2015); McLure et al. (2013); Oesch et al. (2012); Schenker et al. (2013); van der Burg, Hildebrandt & Erben (2010) and Willott et al. (2013).”
Lyα EMISSION FROM A LUMINOUS z = 8.68 GALAXY: IMPLICATIONS FOR GALAXIES AS TRACERS OF COSMIC REIONIZATION (2015, background): “…years through the photometric discovery of large numbers of high-redshift galaxies in both deep and gravitationally-lensed fields observed with the Hubble Space Telescope (e.g. Ellis et al. 2013; McLure et al. 2013; Bradley et al. 2014; Oesch et al. 2014; Zheng et al. 2014; Bouwens et al. 2015b).”
The difficulty of getting high escape fractions of ionizing photons from high-redshift galaxies: A view from the FIRE cosmological simulations (2015, methodology): “…constrained by the ∗ xchma@caltech.edu † Canada Research Chair in Astrophysics. galaxy ultraviolet luminosity function (UVLF; e.g. Bouwens et al. 2011; McLure et al. 2013), Thomson scattering optical depths inferred from Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) measurements (Hinshaw et al. 2013; Planck…”
UVUDF: ULTRAVIOLET THROUGH NEAR-INFRARED CATALOG AND PHOTOMETRIC REDSHIFTS OF GALAXIES IN THE HUBBLE ULTRA DEEP FIELD (2015, background): “While we find no new z & 8 galaxies, we do recover candidates out to z ∼ 8.3 and NIR mag ∼ 29 previously published in the UDF (Ellis et al. 2013; McLure et al. 2013; Schenker et al. 2013; Oesch et al. 2013).”
Directly Observing the Galaxies Likely Responsible for Reionization (2016, background): “The faint end of the rest-frame ultraviolet (UV) luminosity function is steep (a ~ -2; Bouwens et al. 2011, 2015; McLure et al. 2013; Finkelstein et al. 2015), implying that the UV luminosity density—and therefore the ionizing photons responsible for the reionization of the universe—is dominated by…”
GALAXY PROPERTIES AND UV ESCAPE FRACTIONS DURING THE EPOCH OF REIONIZATION: RESULTS FROM THE RENAISSANCE SIMULATIONS (2016, background): “Robertson et al. (2015), by extrapolating the UV luminosity function (LF) with a steep faint-end slope <−2 (e.g., Bouwens et al. 2011, 2015; McLure et al. 2013), have shown that the LF must extend to MUV∼−13 to be consistent with the integrated Thomson optical depth τes=0.066±0.012 measured by the…”
REIONIZATION AFTER PLANCK: THE DERIVED GROWTH OF THE COSMIC IONIZING EMISSIVITY NOW MATCHES THE GROWTH OF THE GALAXY UV LUMINOSITY DENSITY (2015, background): “The steep slope of the UV LF at the −17 mag limit of deep searches for faint galaxies at z ∼ 7–8 suggests that the cut-off is fainter than −17 mag (e.g., B15; McLure et al. 2013; Schenker et al. 2013).”
The UV continua and inferred stellar populations of galaxies at z ~7-9 revealed by the Hubble Ultra-Deep Field 2012 campaign (2012, methodology): “However, the additional deeper H160 imaging, and the ultra-deep Y105 imaging, has also been crucial in enabling the more robust selection of objects at z 7 and z 8 (with improved photometric redshifts; McLure et al. 2013), and a push to still fainter magnitudes.”
Galaxy UV-luminosity function and reionization constraints on axion dark matter (2014, background): “…dataset for constraining the contribution of galaxies to the reionisation of the universe through estimation of the rest-frame UV luminosity function over the the redshift range between z = 4 to z = 10 (Bouwens et al. 2014, 2011; Oesch et al. 2012; McLure et al. 2013; Lorenzoni et al. 2013).”
CEERS Key Paper. I. An Early Look into the First 500 Myr of Galaxy Formation with JWST (2022, background): “With each technological leap leading to a new redshift era being observable, this quantity is always of immense interest (e.g., Bouwens et al. 2004; McLure et al. 2013; Finkelstein et al. 2015), as it is directly comparable to simulation predictions, helping to constrain the physical mechanisms…”
A deep ALMA image of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field (2016, methodology): “The ground-based (U and Ks) and Spitzer photometry was extracted by deconfusing the data using HST positional priors both using the method described in McLure et al. (2011, 2013), and independently using TPHOT (Merlin et al. 2015).”
A SPECTROSCOPIC REDSHIFT MEASUREMENT FOR A LUMINOUS LYMAN BREAK GALAXY AT z = 7.730 USING KECK/MOSFIRE (2015, background): “…galaxy candidates have been identified at z ∼ 7 − 11 thanks to the exceptional nearinfrared sensitivity of the WFC3/IR camera onboard the Hubble Space Telescope (HST ; e.g., Bouwens et al. 2011, 2015; Schenker et al. 2013; McLure et al. 2013; Oesch et al. 2012, 2014; Finkelstein et al. 2014).”
UV LUMINOSITY FUNCTIONS AT REDSHIFTS z ∼ 4 TO z ∼ 10: 10,000 GALAXIES FROM HST LEGACY FIELDS (2014, methodology): “Fortunately, care was taken in Bouwens et al. (2011), Schenker et al. (2013), and McLure et al. (2013) to ensure that the model galaxies in the simulations had a similar size distribution to what 39 was used in the real observations (though the use of point-source profiles in deriving selection volu”
Early Results from GLASS-JWST. III. Galaxy Candidates at z ∼9–15 (2022, background): “…of Hubble Space Telescope (HST) and ground-based data enabled the selection of relatively large samples of LBGs at z∼2–8 (e.g. Reddy & Steidel 2009; McLure et al. 2013; Finkelstein et al. 2015; Roberts-Borsani et al. 2016; Ono et al. 2018; Atek et al. 2018), and progessively smaller samples of…”
Ultraviolet emission lines in young low-mass galaxies at z ≃ 2: physical properties and implications for studies at z > 7 (2014, neutral): “2013a, McLure et al. 2013).”