2008/11/30 by Guangtun Zhu, John Moustakas, Michael R. Blanton
Computer Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Vision and Imaging #Astronomy and Astrophysical Research #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1088/0004-637x/701/1/86
published as Astrophys.J.701:86-93,2009 · 10 pages, 6 figures, 2 tables, resubmitted to ApJ, in emulateapj style. Comparison with narrow-band observations added. Wavelength coverage included into complete function, little effects. The data is available on http://bias.cosmo.fas.nyu.edu/galevolution/
openalex publication_date 2009/07/20 · arxiv created 2010/08/17 · arxiv updated 2010/08/19 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
We measure the evolution of the [O ii ] λ3727 luminosity function (LF) at 0.75 < z < 1.45 using high-resolution spectroscopy of ∼14,000 galaxies observed by the Deep Extragalactic Evolutionary Probe 2 galaxy redshift survey. We find that brighter than the LF is well represented by a power law dN / dL ∝ L α with slope α ∼ −3. The number density of [O ii ]-emitting galaxies above this luminosity declines by a factor of ≳2.5 between z ∼ 1.35 and z ∼ 0.84. In the limit of no number-density evolution, the characteristic [O ii ] luminosity, , defined as the luminosity where the space density equals 10 −3.5 dex -1 Mpc −3 , declines by a factor of ∼1.8 over the same redshift interval. Assuming that is proportional to the star formation rate (SFR), and negligible change in the typical dust attenuation in galaxies at fixed [O ii ] luminosity, the measured decline in implies a ∼25% per Gyr decrease in the amount of star formation in galaxies during this epoch. Adopting a faint-end power-law slope of −1.3 ± 0.2, we derive the comoving SFR density in four redshift bins centered around z ∼ 1 by integrating the observed [O ii ] LF using a local, empirical calibration between and SFR, which statistically accounts for variations in dust attenuation and metallicity among galaxies. We find that our estimate of the SFR density at z ∼ 1 is consistent with previous measurements based on a variety of independent SFR indicators.