The 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey: spectral types and luminosity functions.

We describe the 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey (2dFGRS) and the current status of the observations. In this exploratory paper, we apply a principal component analysis to a preliminary sample of 5869 galaxy spectra and use the two most significant components to split the sample into five spectral classes. These classes are defined by considering visual classifications of a subset of the 2dF spectra, and also by comparison with high-quality spectra of local galaxies. We calculate a luminosity function for each of the different classes and find that later-type galaxies have a fainter characteristic magnitude, and a steeper faint-end slope. For the whole sample we find M*=-19.7 (for Ω=1, H[sub 0]=100 km s[sup -1] Mpc[sup -1]), α=-1.3, φ*=0.017. For class 1 (‘early-type’) we find M*=-19.6, α=-0.7, while for class 5 (‘late-type’) we find M*=-19.0, α=-1.7. The derived 2dF luminosity functions agree well with other recent luminosity function estimates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]