Galaxy And Mass Assembly: evolution of the Hα luminosity function and star formation rate density up to z < 0.35

Gunawardhana, M.L.P.; Hopkins, A.M.; Bland-Hawthorn, J.; Brough, S.; Sharp, R.; Loveday, J.; Taylor, E.; Jones, D.H.; Lara-López, M.A.; Bauer, A.E.; Colless, M.; Owers, M.; Baldry, I.K.; López-Sánchez, A.R.; Foster, C.; Bamford, S.; Brown, M.J.I.; Driver, S.P.; Drinkwater, M.J.; Liske, J.; Meyer, M.; Norberg, P.; Robotham, A.S.G.; Ching, J.H.Y.; Cluver, M.E.; Croom, S.; Kelvin, L.; Prescott, M.; Steele, O.; Thomas, D.; Wang, L.

doi:10.1093/mnras/stt890

Galaxy And Mass Assembly: evolution of the Hα luminosity function and star formation rate density up to z < 0.35

Gunawardhana, M.L.P.; Hopkins, A.M.; Bland-Hawthorn, J.; Brough, S.; Sharp, R.; Loveday, J.; Taylor, E.; Jones, D.H.; Lara-López, M.A.; Bauer, A.E.; Colless, M.; Owers, M.; Baldry, I.K.; López-Sánchez, A.R.; Foster, C.; Bamford, S.; Brown, M.J.I.; Driver, S.P.; Drinkwater, M.J.; Liske, J.; Meyer, M.; Norberg, P.; Robotham, A.S.G.; Ching, J.H.Y.; Cluver, M.E.; Croom, S.; Kelvin, L.; Prescott, M.; Steele, O.; Thomas, D.; Wang, L.

Authors

M.L.P. Gunawardhana

A.M. Hopkins

J. Bland-Hawthorn

S. Brough

R. Sharp

J. Loveday

E. Taylor

D.H. Jones

M.A. Lara-López

A.E. Bauer

M. Colless

M. Owers

I.K. Baldry

A.R. López-Sánchez

C. Foster

S. Bamford

M.J.I. Brown

S.P. Driver

M.J. Drinkwater

J. Liske

M. Meyer

Professor Peder Norberg peder.norberg@durham.ac.uk
Professor

A.S.G. Robotham

J.H.Y. Ching

M.E. Cluver

S. Croom

L. Kelvin

M. Prescott

O. Steele

D. Thomas

L. Wang

Abstract

Measurements of the low-z Hα luminosity function, Φ, have a large dispersion in the local number density of sources (∼0.5–1 Mpc−3 dex−1), and correspondingly in the star formation rate density (SFRD). The possible causes for these discrepancies include limited volume sampling, biases arising from survey sample selection, different methods of correcting for dust obscuration and active galactic nucleus contamination. The Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA) survey and Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) provide deep spectroscopic observations over a wide sky area enabling detection of a large sample of star-forming galaxies spanning 0.001 < SFRHα (M⊙ yr− 1) < 100 with which to robustly measure the evolution of the SFRD in the low-z Universe. The large number of high-SFR galaxies present in our sample allow an improved measurement of the bright end of the luminosity function, indicating that the decrease in Φ at bright luminosities is best described by a Saunders functional form rather than the traditional Schechter function. This result is consistent with other published luminosity functions in the far-infrared and radio. For GAMA and SDSS, we find the r-band apparent magnitude limit, combined with the subsequent requirement for Hα detection leads to an incompleteness due to missing bright Hα sources with faint r-band magnitudes.

Citation

Gunawardhana, M., Hopkins, A., Bland-Hawthorn, J., Brough, S., Sharp, R., Loveday, J., …Wang, L. (2013). Galaxy And Mass Assembly: evolution of the Hα luminosity function and star formation rate density up to z < 0.35. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 433(4), 2764-2789. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stt890

Journal Article Type	Article
Publication Date	Aug 1, 2013
Deposit Date	Jun 3, 2014
Publicly Available Date	Jun 30, 2014
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	433
Issue	4
Pages	2764-2789
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stt890
Keywords	Surveys, Galaxies: evolution, Galaxies: formation, Galaxies: interactions, Galaxies: luminosity function, Mass function, Galaxies: starburst.

Files

Published Journal Article (7.5 Mb)
PDF

Copyright Statement
This article has been accepted for publication in Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society © 2013 The Authors Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Royal Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.