THE EVOLUTION OF THE GALAXY REST-FRAME ULTRAVIOLET LUMINOSITY FUNCTION OVER THE FIRST TWO BILLION YEARS

By S. Finkelstein, R. Ryan, C. Papovich, Mark Dickinson, Mimi Song, R. Somerville, H. Ferguson, B. Salmon, M. Giavalisco, A. Koekemoer and 19 more. 2014

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We present a robust measurement and analysis of the rest-frame ultraviolet (UV) luminosity functions at z = 4–8. We use deep Hubble Space Telescope imaging over the Cosmic Assembly Near-infrared Deep Extragalactic Legacy Survey/GOODS fields, the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, and the Hubble Frontier Field deep parallel observations near the Abell 2744 and MACS J0416.1-2403 clusters. The combination of these surveys provides an effective volume of 0.6–1.2 × 106 Mpc3 over this epoch, allowing us to perform a robust search for faint ( M UV = − ?> 18) and bright (M UV < − ?> 21) high-redshift galaxies. We select candidate galaxies using a well-tested photometric redshift technique with careful screening of contaminants, finding a sample of 7446 candidate galaxies at 3.5 < z < ?> 8.5, with >1000 galaxies at z ≈ ?> 6–8. We measure both a stepwise luminosity function for candidate galaxies in our redshift samples, and a Schechter function, using a Markov Chain Monte Carlo analysis to measure robust uncertainties. At the faint end, our UV luminosity functions agree with previous studies, yet we find a higher abundance of UV-bright candidate galaxies at z ≥ ?> 6. Our best-fit value of the characteristic magnitude M UV * ?> is consistent with −21 at z ≥ ?> 5, which is different than that inferred based on previous trends at lower redshift, and brighter at ∼2σ significance than previous measures at z = 6 and 7. At z = 8, a single power law provides an equally good fit to the UV luminosity function, while at z = 6 and 7 an exponential cutoff at the bright end is moderately preferred. We compare our luminosity functions to semi-analytical models, and find that the lack of evolution in M UV * ?> is consistent with models where the impact of dust attenuation on the bright end of the luminosity function decreases at higher redshift, although a decreasing impact of feedback may also be possible. We measure the evolution of the cosmic star-formation rate (SFR) density by integrating our observed luminosity functions to M UV = − 17 ?> , correcting for dust attenuation, and find that the SFR density declines proportionally to (1 + z ?> ) − 4.3 ± 0.5 ?> at z > ?> 4, which is consistent with observations at z ≥ ?> 9. Our observed luminosity functions are consistent with a reionization history that starts at z ≳ ?> 10, completes at z > ?> 6, and reaches a midpoint (x H II = ?> 0.5) at 6.7 < z < ?> 9.4. Finally, using a constant cumulative number density selection and an empirically derived rising star-formation history, our observations predict that the abundance of bright z = 9 galaxies is likely higher than previous constraints, although consistent with recent estimates of bright z ∼ ?> 10 galaxies.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Nuclear and High Energy Physics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/e20178e69d9b5c930bbe27a16d6fdbe05d3b89e5

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Citations in the corpus

Rapid Reionization by the Oligarchs: The Case for Massive, UV-bright, Star-forming Galaxies with High Escape Fractions (2019, background): “The faint-end slope of the UVLF (aUV) in our model steepens with redshift, and the same trend is seen in observations (e.g., Bouwens et al. 2015b; Finkelstein et al. 2015).”
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).”
New redshift z ≃ 9 galaxies in the Hubble Frontier Fields: implications for early evolution of the UV luminosity density (2014, background): “…7 and z ' 8 (e.g. McLure et al. 2010, 2013; Oesch et al. 2012b; Bradley et al. 2012; Schenker et al. 2013; Schmidt et al. 2014; Bouwens et al. 2014b; Finkelstein et al. 2014), at least at M1500 > −21 (see Bowler et al. 2012, 2014a, 2014b for new progress in the continuing debate over the form of…”
Dust Attenuation Curves in the Local Universe: Demographics and New Laws for Star-forming Galaxies and High-redshift Analogs (2018, background): “This is often the case for high redshift galaxies (e.g.,Bouwens et al. 2014; Smit et al. 2014; Bowler et al. 2015; Finkelstein et al. 2015; Oesch et al. 2014), and will be common for earlyuniverse galaxy populations to be studied by JWST (unless accompanied by observations made by ALMA).”
Detection of high Lyman continuum leakage from four low-redshift compact star-forming galaxies (2016, background): “On the other hand, Finkelstein et al. (2012, 2015) estimated fesc(LyC) < 13 % at z =6 if the luminosity function of galaxies extends to MUV ∼ −13.”
The Universe Is Reionizing at z ∼ 7: Bayesian Inference of the IGM Neutral Fraction Using Lyα Emission from Galaxies (2017, methodology): “We add a 0.2 mag uncertainty to the UV magnitude measurements to account for scatter in the UV magnitude – halo mass relation (e.g., Finkelstein et al. 2015a) and use the propagated uncertainties in halo mass in the ∆v −Mh.”
Lyα and C iii] emission in z = 7–9 Galaxies: accelerated reionization around luminous star-forming systems? (2016, background): “…6 tend to have larger Lyα equivalent widths (Ouchi et al. 2008; Stark et al. 2011; Curtis-Lake et al. 2012; Cassata et al. 2015) and lower luminosities (McLure et al. 2013; Bouwens et al. 2015b; Finkelstein et al. 2015), smaller Lyα velocity offsets are likely to be common in the reionization era.”
THE EVOLUTION OF GALAXY NUMBER DENSITY AT z < 8 AND ITS IMPLICATIONS (2016, methodology): “For this we use the luminosity functions published in Bouwens et al. (2011), McLure et al. (2009), McLure et al. (2013), Bouwens et al. (2015) and Finkelstein et al. (2015).”
GALAXY PROPERTIES AND UV ESCAPE FRACTIONS DURING THE EPOCH OF REIONIZATION: RESULTS FROM THE RENAISSANCE SIMULATIONS (2016, methodology): “We find that our LFs follow a similar power law as thoseseen in observations (e.g., Bouwens et al. 2015; Finkelstein et al. 2015), but extends to very faint galaxies with M1500;−12and flattens above this absolute magnitude (Wise et al. 2014; O’Shea et al. 2015).”
The Frontier Fields: Survey Design and Initial Results (2016, background): “HST’s observations of high redshift galaxies have placed important constraints on cosmological measures of reionization (e.g. Robertson et al. 2015, Finkelstein et al. 2015).”