The ALHAMBRA survey^⋆: B-band luminosity function of quiescent and star-forming galaxies at 0.2 ≤ z < 1 by PDF analysis

¹ Centro de Estudios de Física del Cosmos de Aragón (CEFCA), Unidad Asociada al CSIC, Plaza San Juan 1, 44001 Teruel, Spain
e-mail: clsj@cefca.es
² Leibniz-Institut für Astrophysik Potsdam (AIP), An der Sternwarte 16, 14482 Potsdam, Germany
³ Tartu Observatory, Observatooriumi 1, 61602 Tõravere, Estonia
⁴ IAA-CSIC, Glorieta de la Astronomía s/n, 18008 Granada, Spain
⁵ Instituto de Astronomía, Geofísica e Ciéncias Atmosféricas, Universidade de São Paulo, 05508-090 São Paulo, Brazil
⁶ Instituto de Física de Cantabria (CSIC-UC), 39005 Santander, Spain
⁷ Unidad Asociada Observatorio Astronómico (IFCA-UV), 46980 Paterna, Spain
⁸ Observatori Astronòmic, Universitat de València, C/ Catedràtic José Beltrán 2, 46980 Paterna, Spain
⁹ Departament d’Astronomia i Astrofísica, Universitat de València, 46100 Burjassot, Spain
¹⁰ APC, AstroParticule et Cosmologie, Université Paris Diderot, CNRS/IN2P3, CEA/lrfu, Observatoire de Paris, Sorbonne Paris Cité, 10 rue Alice Domon et Léonie Duquet, 75205 Paris Cedex 13, France
¹¹ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Utah, 115 South 1400 East, Salt Lake City, UT 84112, USA
¹² Leiden Observatory, Leiden University, PO Box 9513, 2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands
¹³ Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, Vía Láctea s/n, 38200 La Laguna, Spain
¹⁴ Departamento de Astrofísica, Facultad de Física, Universidad de La Laguna, 38206 La Laguna, Spain
¹⁵ Observatório Nacional-MCT, Rua José Cristino 77, 20921-400 Rio de Janeiro-RJ, Brazil
¹⁶ Department of Theoretical Physics, University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU, 48080 Bilbao, Spain
¹⁷ IKERBASQUE, Basque Foundation for Science, 48013 Bilbao, Spain
¹⁸ Departamento de Física Atómica, Molecular y Nuclear, Facultad de Física, Universidad de Sevilla, 41012 Sevilla, Spain
¹⁹ Institut de Ciències de l’Espai (IEEC-CSIC), Facultat de Ciències, Campus UAB, 08193 Bellaterra, Spain
²⁰ Departamento de Astronomía, Pontificia Universidad Católica. 782-0436 Santiago, Chile
²¹ Instituto de Física Teórica (UAM/CSIC), Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Cantoblanco, 28049 Madrid, Spain
²² Campus of International Excellence UAM+CSIC, Cantoblanco, 28049 Madrid, Spain

Received: 11 August 2016
Accepted: 21 November 2016

Abstract

Aims. Our goal is to study the evolution of the B-band luminosity function (LF) since z ~ 1 using ALHAMBRA data.

Methods. We used the photometric redshift and the I-band selection magnitude probability distribution functions (PDFs) of those ALHAMBRA galaxies with I ≤ 24 mag to compute the posterior LF. We statistically studied quiescent and star-forming galaxies using the template information encoded in the PDFs. The LF covariance matrix in redshift – magnitude – galaxy type space was computed, including the cosmic variance. That was estimated from the intrinsic dispersion of the LF measurements in the 48 ALHAMBRA sub-fields. The uncertainty due to the photometric redshift prior is also included in our analysis.

Results. We modelled the LF with a redshift-dependent Schechter function affected by the same selection effects than the data. The measured ALHAMBRA LF at 0.2 ≤ z< 1 and the evolving Schechter parameters both for quiescent and star-forming galaxies agree with previous results in the literature. The estimated redshift evolution of M_B^* ∝ Qz is Q_SF = −1.03 ± 0.08 and Q_Q = −0.80 ± 0.08, and of log ₁₀φ^∗ ∝ Pz is P_SF = −0.01 ± 0.03 and P_Q = −0.41 ± 0.05. The measured faint-end slopes are α_SF = −1.29 ± 0.02 and α_Q = −0.53 ± 0.04. We find a significant population of faint quiescent galaxies with M_B ≳ −18, modelled by a second Schechter function with slope β = −1.31 ± 0.11.

Conclusions. We present a robust methodology to compute LFs using multi-filter photometric data. The application to ALHAMBRA shows a factor 2.55 ± 0.14 decrease in the luminosity density j_B of star-forming galaxies, and a factor 1.25 ± 0.16 increase in the j_B of quiescent ones since z = 1, confirming the continuous build-up of the quiescent population with cosmic time. The contribution of the faint quiescent population to j_B increases from 3% at z = 1 to 6% at z = 0. The developed methodology will be applied to future multi-filter surveys such as J-PAS.