The VIMOS-VLT Deep Survey

Free access article

Issue		A&A Volume 453, Number 3, July III 2006


Page(s)		809 - 815
Section		Extragalactic astronomy
DOI		http://dx.doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361:20053632

A&A 453, 809-815 (2006)
DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361:20053632

Galaxy luminosity function per morphological type up to z = 1.2

O. Ilbert^{1, 2}, S. Lauger¹, L. Tresse¹, V. Buat¹, S. Arnouts¹, O. Le Fèvre¹, D. Burgarella¹, E. Zucca³, S. Bardelli³, G. Zamorani³, D. Bottini⁴, B. Garilli⁴, V. Le Brun¹, D. Maccagni⁴, J.-P. Picat⁵, R. Scaramella⁶, M. Scodeggio⁴, G. Vettolani⁶, A. Zanichelli⁶, C. Adami¹, M. Arnaboldi⁷, M. Bolzonella², A. Cappi³, S. Charlot^{8, 9}, T. Contini⁵, S. Foucaud⁴, P. Franzetti⁴, I. Gavignaud^{5, 10}, L. Guzzo¹¹, A. Iovino¹¹, H. J. McCracken^{9, 12}, B. Marano², C. Marinoni¹, G. Mathez⁵, A. Mazure¹, B. Meneux¹, R. Merighi³, S. Paltani¹, R. Pello⁵, A. Pollo¹¹, L. Pozzetti³, M. Radovich⁷, M. Bondi⁶, A. Bongiorno², G. Busarello⁷, P. Ciliegi³, Y. Mellier^{9, 12}, P. Merluzzi⁷, V. Ripepi⁷ and D. Rizzo⁵

¹ Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Marseille (UMR 6110), CNRS-Université de Provence, BP 8, 13376 Marseille Cedex 12, France
e-mail: olivier.ilbert1@bo.astro.it
² Università di Bologna, Dipartimento di Astronomia, via Ranzani 1, 40127 Bologna, Italy
³ INAF - Osservatorio Astronomico di Bologna, via Ranzani 1, 40127 Bologna, Italy
⁴ INAF - IASF, via Bassini 15, 20133 Milano, Italy
⁵ Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de l'Observatoire Midi-Pyrénées (UMR 5572), CNRS-Université Paul Sabatier, 14 avenue E. Belin, 31400 Toulouse, France
⁶ INAF - IRA, via Gobetti 101, 40129 Bologna, Italy
⁷ INAF - Osservatorio Astronomico di Capodimonte, via Moiariello 16, 80131 Napoli, Italy
⁸ Max-Planck-Institut für Astrophysik, Karl-Schwarzschild-Str. 1, 85740 Garching bei München, Germany
⁹ Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris (UMR 7095), 98 bis boulevard Arago, 75014 Paris, France
¹⁰ European Southern Observatory, Karl-Schwarzschild-Str. 2, 85748 Garching bei München, Germany
¹¹ INAF - Osservatorio Astronomico di Brera, via Brera 28, 20121 Milano, Italy
¹² Observatoire de Paris-LERMA, 61 avenue de l'Observatoire, 75014 Paris, France

(Received 14 June 2005 / Accepted 16 January 2006 )

Abstract
Aims.We have computed the evolution of the rest-frame B-band luminosity function (LF) for bulge and disk-dominated galaxies since z=1.2.
Methods.We use a sample of 605 spectroscopic redshifts with $I_{{\rm AB}}\le 24$ in the Chandra Deep Field South from the VIMOS-VLT Deep Survey, 3555 galaxies with photometric redshifts from the COMBO-17 multi-color data, coupled with multi-color HST/ACS images from the Great Observatories Origin Deep Survey. We split the sample in bulge- and disk-dominated populations on the basis of asymmetry and concentration parameters measured in the rest-frame B-band.
Results.We find that at z=0.4-0.8, the LF slope is significantly steeper for the disk-dominated population ( $\alpha=-1.19$ $\pm$ 0.07) compared to the bulge-dominated population ( $\alpha=-0.53$ $\pm$ 0.13). The LF of the bulge-dominated population is composed of two distinct populations separated in rest-frame color: 68% of red $(B-I)_{{\rm AB}}>0.9$ and bright galaxies showing a strongly decreasing LF slope $\alpha=+0.55$ $\pm$ 0.21, and 32% of blue $(B-I)_{{\rm AB}}<0.9$ and more compact galaxies which populate the LF faint-end. We observe that red bulge-dominated galaxies are already well in place at $z\simeq1$ , but the volume density of this population is increasing by a factor 2.7 between $z\sim 1$ and $z\sim 0.6$ . It may be related to the building-up of massive elliptical galaxies in the hierarchical scenario. In addition, we observe that the blue bulge-dominated population is dimming by 0.7 mag between $z\sim 1$ and $z\sim 0.6$ . Galaxies in this faint and more compact population could possibly be the progenitors of the local dwarf spheroidal galaxies.

Key words: surveys -- Galaxy: evolution -- galaxies: luminosity function, mass function -- galaxies: fundamental parameters

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