All Figures

$\begin{figure} \par\includegraphics[width=6.5cm,clip]{0633fig1.ps}\par\includegraphics[width=6.5cm,clip]{0633fig2.ps} \end{figure}$ Figure 1: Sky coverage maps of the NIR datasets in the Groth and HDFN fields. The outlines represent. Top - The CAHA- $\Omega '$ K'-band flanking fields at both sides of the WHT-INGRID K-band coverage of the original Groth strip (Cristóbal-Hornillos et al. 2003), and the $\Omega 2k$ J-band pointings of Villar et al. (2008). The J-band central image is shown for comparison with the HDFN K-band image covering the same area ( $\sim$ 225 $^\prime$ ²). Bottom - The CAHA- $\Omega$ 2k K-band coverage of the HDFN. The GOODS-HST footprints are also shown for comparison.
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In the text

$\begin{figure} \par\includegraphics[width=9cm,clip]{0633fig3.eps} \end{figure}$ Figure 2: The K-band best fit to the point source completeness curves. Point-like sources were inserted at random locations in the images. The completeness is defined as the fraction of recovered sources in each image. The short dashed line shows the completeness curve for the Groth32 pointing, the shallowest frame employed computing the number counts. The vertical long dashed line at K=18.5 depicts the magnitude threshold to which our catalog is $\sim$ 100% complete.
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In the text

$\begin{figure} \par\includegraphics[angle=0,width=8.8cm,clip]{0633fig4.eps} \end{figure}$ Figure 3: Efficiency of the BzK color-color diagram to identify stars, compared to the combination of the other 9 criteria applied to isolate stars. The dashed lines depict the regions defined by the BzK criteria. The bottom line isolates the stellar locus, while the other two select sources at z > 1.4. Black stars show the sources that satisfy three or more stellarity criteria.
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In the text

$\begin{figure} \par\includegraphics[angle=0,width=8cm,clip]{0633fig5.eps} \end{figure}$ Figure 4: Comparison of the scattering in the photometric redshift estimates ( $z_{{\rm spec}}-z_{{\rm phot}})/(1+z_{{\rm phot}}$ ) for the three fields.
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In the text

$\begin{figure} \par\includegraphics[width=8.8cm,clip]{0633fig6.eps} \end{figure}$ Figure 5: Photometric redshift distributions of the K-band selected galaxies in the HDFN, CDFS and Groth fields.
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In the text

$\begin{figure} \par\includegraphics[width=8.8cm,clip]{0633fig7.eps} \end{figure}$ Figure 6: The raw number counts in our three fields (HDFN, CDFS, Groth) and counts from CH03 obtained in an small portion of our total area in the Groth field. Error bars are derived from a combination of Poisson errors and bootstrapping. No completeness corrections have been made.
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In the text

$\begin{figure} \par\mbox{\includegraphics[width=8cm,clip]{0633fig8.eps} \includegraphics[width=8cm,clip]{0633fig9.eps} }\end{figure}$ Figure 7: Left: averaged K-band number counts from Groth, HDFN and CDFS compared with a compilation of results taken from various sources. Right: slope for the differential number counts in our three fields, along with data from the literature. The horizontal dashed lines indicates the value of the slope at both sides of K=17.5 reported in CH03.
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In the text

$\begin{figure} \par\includegraphics[width=8cm,clip]{0633fig10.eps} \end{figure}$ Figure 8: Slope for the differential number counts in the 100 samples of the Millennium simulation drawn from the mock catalogs of Kitzbichler & White (2007). The thick dashed line shows the averaged NCs combining all the samples.
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In the text

$\begin{figure} \par\includegraphics[width=8cm,clip]{0633fig11.eps} \end{figure}$ Figure 9: NCs in the K-band for the CDFS field alone (thick black line) and NCs in several photo-redshift ranges. At bright magnitudes ( $K \sim 17$ ) the contribution to the NCs is limited to only a few low redshift bins, whereas at $K \sim 18$ the total number counts becomes a mixture of several low and high redshift bins (z>1.5).
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In the text

$\begin{figure} \par\mbox{\resizebox{7cm}{!}{\includegraphics{0633fig12.eps}}\res... ...33fig14.eps}}\resizebox{7cm}{!}{\includegraphics{0633fig15.eps}} }\end{figure}$ Figure 10: Relative contribution to the K-band number counts in redshift bins for the samples in the HFDN, CDFS and Groth field. Field-to-field differences can reach the 40% for the most prominent LSS features.
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In the text

$\begin{figure} \par\mbox{\resizebox{8cm}{!}{\includegraphics{0633fig16.eps}}\res... ...33fig18.eps}}\resizebox{8cm}{!}{\includegraphics{0633fig19.eps}} }\end{figure}$ Figure 11: LFs derived from the observed K-band in different redshift slices. The LF with the $V_{{\rm max}}$ method are shown as open squares with error bars (including Poisson, photometric and photometric redshift uncertainties). The continuous line depicts the best fit from the STY method. The inset shows the best fitting (M, $\alpha$ ) values (star) with 1, 2 and 3 $\sigma$ confidence contours, and also the mean value (cross) with error bars derived from the photometric redshift simulations. The vertical line shows the photometric threshold for the shallowest fields, $K_{{\rm Vega}}=18.5$ . The additional vertical line in the first panel shows the lower threshold at bright magnitudes.
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In the text

$\begin{figure} \par\mbox{\includegraphics[width=8.8cm,clip]{0633fig20.eps} \includegraphics[width=8.8cm,clip]{0633fig21.eps} }\end{figure}$ Figure 12: Evolution with redshift of the Schechter parameters $M^{\ast }$ ( left panel), $\phi ^{\ast }$ ( right panel) in the RizJK rest-frame bands. For each photometric band (RizJK, vertical dotted lines) the empty circles depict the redshift evolution of the parameter at $z \sim 0.4$ , 0.9, 1.3 and 1.9, drawn from different authors (see Table 5). The long dashed lines connect the values of the parameter at the same redshift in different bands. The black stars shows the value of the parameter at z=1.70, z=2.26 and z=2.25 in the i, z and R bands respectively. The black dots indicate the LF parameters at $\bar{z}=0.38$ , 0.62, 0.88, 1.12 derived in this work.
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In the text

$\begin{figure} \par\mbox{\resizebox{!}{8.5cm}{\includegraphics{0633fig22.eps}}\resizebox{!}{8.5cm}{\includegraphics{0633fig23.eps}} }\end{figure}$ Figure 13: Multi-wavelength evolution of the Schechter parameters $M^{\ast }_{K,{\rm obs}}$ ( left panel), $\phi ^{\ast }_{K,{\rm obs}}$ ( right panel) as probed by the observed K-band. For each photometric band (RizJK, vertical dotted lines) the empty circles depict the redshift evolution of the parameter at $z \sim 0.4$ , 0.9, 1.3 and 1.9, drawn from different authors (see Table 5). The black stars show the value of the parameter at z=1.70, z=2.26 and z=2.25 in the i, z and R bands respectively. The grey vertical line at z=1.25 is the estimated redshift from which the contribution of the sources to the NCs up to K=18.5 is less than $10\%$ . The black dots indicate the LF parameters at $\bar{z}=0.38, 0.62, 0.88, 1.12$ derived in this work. The thick black line shows the approximated evolution of the Schechter parameters as probed by the observed K-band at growing redshifts.
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In the text

$\begin{figure} \par\mbox{\includegraphics[width=8.5cm,clip]{0633fig24.eps}\hspace*{2mm} \includegraphics[width=8.5cm,clip]{0633fig25.eps} }\end{figure}$ Figure 14: Left: K-band NCs derived from the LFs (thick black line) compared to data from other authors (the legend as in the left panel of Fig. 7). The shaded region indicates the 1 $\sigma$ confidence interval derived from the simulations on the uncertainties of the Schechter parameters. The continuous lines with different symbols show the redshift binned number counts at $\bar{z}=0.32$ , 0.62, 0.88, 1.12 derived from the LFs in the present work. The dashed lines with different symbols show the redshift binned number counts at higher redshifts from Gabasch et al. (2006) (in the i and z rest-frame bands) and Marchesini et al. (2007) (in the R rest-frame band). These NCs have a negligible effect on the on the total NCs at K <18. The arrows depict the best-fit value of $M^{\ast }_{K,{\rm obs}}$ for the LFs at $\bar{z}=0.32,0.62,0.88,1.12$ . Note that to derive the total NCs we have also used LFs at higher redshift from the literature. Right: slope of the NCs derived from the LFs (thick black line). The dark grey shaded region represents the 1 $\sigma$ confidence interval derived from the simulations on the uncertainties of the Schechter parameters. The light grey shaded region shows the region encompassing the slopes derived from the references. The dashed line shows the predicted slope derived from a single LF constant through all redshifts. The circled line shows the predicted slope fixing $\alpha =-1.50$ for the LFs at z>0.5, The crossed line shows the predicted slope fixing $\phi^{\ast}_{K,{\rm obs}}=3.4\times10^{-3}~h_{70}^{3}~{\rm Mpc}^{-3}$ for the LFs at z=0.5.
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In the text

$\begin{figure} \par\includegraphics[angle=0,width=8.8cm,clip]{0633fig4.eps} \end{figure}$	Figure 3: Efficiency of the BzK color-color diagram to identify stars, compared to the combination of the other 9 criteria applied to isolate stars. The dashed lines depict the regions defined by the BzK criteria. The bottom line isolates the stellar locus, while the other two select sources at z > 1.4. Black stars show the sources that satisfy three or more stellarity criteria.
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$\begin{figure} \par\includegraphics[angle=0,width=8cm,clip]{0633fig5.eps} \end{figure}$	Figure 4: Comparison of the scattering in the photometric redshift estimates ( $z_{{\rm spec}}-z_{{\rm phot}})/(1+z_{{\rm phot}}$ ) for the three fields.
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$\begin{figure} \par\includegraphics[width=8.8cm,clip]{0633fig6.eps} \end{figure}$	Figure 5: Photometric redshift distributions of the K-band selected galaxies in the HDFN, CDFS and Groth fields.
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$\begin{figure} \par\includegraphics[width=8.8cm,clip]{0633fig7.eps} \end{figure}$	Figure 6: The raw number counts in our three fields (HDFN, CDFS, Groth) and counts from CH03 obtained in an small portion of our total area in the Groth field. Error bars are derived from a combination of Poisson errors and bootstrapping. No completeness corrections have been made.
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$\begin{figure} \par\mbox{\includegraphics[width=8cm,clip]{0633fig8.eps} \includegraphics[width=8cm,clip]{0633fig9.eps} }\end{figure}$	Figure 7: Left: averaged K-band number counts from Groth, HDFN and CDFS compared with a compilation of results taken from various sources. Right: slope for the differential number counts in our three fields, along with data from the literature. The horizontal dashed lines indicates the value of the slope at both sides of K=17.5 reported in CH03.
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$\begin{figure} \par\includegraphics[width=8cm,clip]{0633fig10.eps} \end{figure}$	Figure 8: Slope for the differential number counts in the 100 samples of the Millennium simulation drawn from the mock catalogs of Kitzbichler & White (2007). The thick dashed line shows the averaged NCs combining all the samples.
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$\begin{figure} \par\includegraphics[width=8cm,clip]{0633fig11.eps} \end{figure}$	Figure 9: NCs in the K-band for the CDFS field alone (thick black line) and NCs in several photo-redshift ranges. At bright magnitudes ( $K \sim 17$ ) the contribution to the NCs is limited to only a few low redshift bins, whereas at $K \sim 18$ the total number counts becomes a mixture of several low and high redshift bins (z>1.5).
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$\begin{figure} \par\mbox{\resizebox{7cm}{!}{\includegraphics{0633fig12.eps}}\res... ...33fig14.eps}}\resizebox{7cm}{!}{\includegraphics{0633fig15.eps}} }\end{figure}$	Figure 10: Relative contribution to the K-band number counts in redshift bins for the samples in the HFDN, CDFS and Groth field. Field-to-field differences can reach the 40% for the most prominent LSS features.
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