1. The Ultraviolet Luminosity Function at 0.6 < z < 1 from UVCANDELS.
- Author
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Sun, Lei, Wang, Xin, Teplitz, Harry I., Mehta, Vihang, Alavi, Anahita, Rafelski, Marc, Windhorst, Rogier A., Scarlata, Claudia, Gardner, Jonathan P., Smith, Brent M., Sunnquist, Ben, Prichard, Laura, Cheng, Yingjie, Grogin, Norman, Hathi, Nimish P., Hayes, Matthew, Koekemoer, Anton M., Mobasher, Bahram, Nedkova, Kalina V., and O'Connell, Robert
- Subjects
GALACTIC evolution ,GALACTIC redshift ,SPACE telescopes ,SIGNAL-to-noise ratio ,ORBITS (Astronomy) ,STELLAR luminosity function - Abstract
UVCANDELS is a Hubble Space Telescope Cycle-26 Treasury Program awarded 164 orbits of primary ultraviolet (UV) F275W imaging and coordinated parallel optical F435W imaging in four CANDELS fields—GOODS-N, GOODS-S, EGS, and COSMOS—covering a total area of ∼426 arcmin
2 . This is ∼2.7 times larger than the area covered by previous deep-field space UV data combined, reaching a depth of about 27 and 28 ABmag (5 σ in 0."2 apertures) for F275W and F435W, respectively. Along with new photometric catalogs, we present an analysis of the rest-frame UV luminosity function (LF), relying on our UV-optimized aperture photometry method, yielding a factor of 1.5 increase over H-isophot aperture photometry in the signal-to-noise ratios of galaxies in our F275W imaging. Using well-tested photometric redshift measurements, we identify 5810 galaxies at redshifts 0.6 < z < 1, down to an absolute magnitude of MUV = −14.2. In order to minimize the effect of uncertainties in estimating the completeness function, especially at the faint end, we restrict our analysis to sources above 30% completeness, which provides a final sample of 4726 galaxies at −21.5 < MUV < −15.5. We performed a maximum likelihood estimate to derive the best-fit parameters of the UV LF. We report a best-fit faint-end slope of α = − 1.359 − 0.041 + 0.041 at z ∼ 0.8. Creating subsamples at z ∼ 0.7 and z ∼ 0.9, we observe a possible evolution of α with redshift. The unobscured UV luminosity density at MUV < −10 is derived as ρ U V = 1.339 − 0.030 + 0.027 (× 10 26 e r g s − 1 H z − 1 M p c − 3) using our best-fit LF parameters. The new F275W and F435 photometric catalogs from UVCANDELS have been made publicly available on the Barbara A. Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]- Published
- 2024
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