| Issue |
A&A
Volume 421, Number 1, July I 2004
|
|
|---|---|---|
| Page(s) | 41 - 58 | |
| Section | Cosmology (including clusters of galaxies) | |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361:20035909 | |
| Published online | 11 June 2004 | |
The evolution of the luminosity functions in the FORS Deep Field from low to high redshift*,**,***
I. The blue bands
1
Universitäts-Sternwarte München, Scheinerstr. 1, 81679 München, Germany
2
Max-Planck-Institut für Extraterrestrische Physik, Giessenbachstraße, 85748 Garching b. München, Germany
3
McDonald Observatory, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas 78712, USA
4
Landessternwarte Heidelberg, Königstuhl, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany
5
Universitäts-Sternwarte Göttingen, Geismarlandstr. 11, 37083 Göttingen, Germany
Corresponding author: A. Gabasch, gabasch@usm.uni-muenchen.de
Received:
19
December
2003
Accepted:
20
March
2004
We use the very deep and homogeneous I-band selected
dataset of the FORS Deep Field (FDF) to trace the evolution of the
luminosity function over the redshift range 
.
We show that the FDF I-band selection down to 
misses
of the order of 10% of the galaxies that would be detected in a
K-band selected survey with magnitude limit 
(like
FIRES). Photometric redshifts for 5558 galaxies are estimated based
on the photometry in 9 filters (U, B, Gunn g, R, I, SDSS z, J, K and a special filter centered at 834 nm). A comparison with 362 spectroscopic redshifts shows that the achieved accuracy of the
photometric redshifts is 
with only ~1% outliers. This allows us to derive luminosity
functions with a reliability similar to spectroscopic surveys. In
addition, the luminosity functions can be traced to objects of lower
luminosity which generally are not accessible to spectroscopy. We
investigate the evolution of the luminosity functions evaluated in
the restframe UV (1500 Å and 2800 Å), u', B, and g' bands.
Comparison with results from the literature shows the reliability of
the derived luminosity functions. Out to redshifts of 
the data are consistent with a slope of the luminosity function
approximately constant with redshift, at a value of 
in the UV (1500 Å, 2800 Å) as well as u', and 
in the blue (g', B). We do not see evidence for a very steep slope
(
) in the UV at 
and 
favoured by other
authors. There may be a tendency for the faint-end slope to become
shallower with increasing redshift but the effect is marginal. We
find a brightening of 
and a decrease of 
with
redshift for all analyzed wavelengths. The effect is systematic and
much stronger than what can be expected to be caused by cosmic
variance seen in the FDF. The evolution of and
from 
to 
is well described by the simple approximations
and 
for and . The
evolution is very pronounced at shorter wavelengths
(
, and 
for 1500 Å rest wavelength) and
decreases systematically with increasing wavelength, but is also
clearly visible at the longest wavelength investigated here
(
, and 
for g'). Finally we show a
comparison with semi-analytical galaxy formation models.
Key words: galaxies: luminosity function, mass function / galaxy: fundamental parameters / galaxies: high-redshift / galaxies: distances and redshifts / galaxies: evolution
Based on observations collected with the VLT on Cerro Paranal (Chile) and the NTT on La Silla (Chile) operated by the European Southern Observatory in the course of the observing proposals 63.O-0005, 64.O-0149, 64.O-0158, 64.O-0229, 64.P-0150, 65.O-0048, 65.O-0049, 66.A-0547, 68.A-0013, and 69.A-0014.
© ESO, 2004
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