Open AccessEstimates for the luminosity function of galaxies and its evolution
Author(s) -
Springel Volker,
White Simon D. M.
Publication year - 1998
Publication title -
monthly notices of the royal astronomical society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.058
H-Index - 383
eISSN - 1365-2966
pISSN - 0035-8711
DOI - 10.1046/j.1365-8711.1998.01615.x
Subject(s) - physics , luminosity function , astrophysics , galaxy , luminosity , estimator , redshift , function (biology) , galaxy formation and evolution , luminous infrared galaxy , cosmology , selection (genetic algorithm) , astronomy , statistics , mathematics , evolutionary biology , artificial intelligence , computer science , biology
A new method is presented to obtain a non‐parametric maximum likelihood estimate of the luminosity function and the selection function of a flux‐limited redshift survey. The method parametrizes the selection function as a series of stepwise power laws and allows possible evolution of the luminosity function. We also propose a new technique to estimate the rate of evolution of the luminosity function. This is based on a minimization of the observed large‐scale power with respect to the evolutionary model. We use an ensemble of mock surveys extracted from an N ‐body simulation to verify the power of this method. We apply our estimators to the 1.2‐Jy survey of IRAS galaxies. We find a far‐infrared luminosity function in good agreement with previously published results and evidence for rather strong evolution. If the comoving number density of IRAS galaxies is assumed to scale ∝ (1 + z ) P , we estimate P = 4.3 ± 1.4.