THE EVOLUTION OF THE FAR-UV LUMINOSITY FUNCTION AND STAR FORMATION RATE DENSITY OF THE CHANDRA DEEP FIELD SOUTH FROM z = 0.2 TO 1.2 WITH SWIFT/UVOT

Journal Article · Sat Aug 01 04:00:00 EDT 2015 · Astrophysical Journal

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-637X/808/2/178· OSTI ID:22525687

Hagen, Lea M. Z.; Gronwall, Caryl; Wolf, Christopher; Siegel, Michael H.; Hagen, Alex ^[1]; Hoversten, Erik A. ^[2]; Page, Mathew ^[3]

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1. Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802 (United States)
2. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 120 E. Cameron Avenue, Chapel Hill, NC 27599 (United States)
3. Mullard Space Science Laboratory, University College London, Holmbury St Mary, Dorking, Surrey RH5 6NT (United Kingdom)

We use deep Swift UV/Optical Telescope (UVOT) near-ultraviolet (1600–4000 Å) imaging of the Chandra Deep Field South to measure the rest-frame far-UV (FUV; 1500 Å) luminosity function (LF) in four redshift bins between z = 0.2 and 1.2. Our sample includes 730 galaxies with u < 24.1 mag. We use two methods to construct and fit the LFs: the traditional V{sub max} method with bootstrap errors, and a maximum likelihood estimator. We observe luminosity evolution such that M* fades by ∼2 mag from z ∼ 1 to z ∼ 0.3, implying that star formation activity was substantially higher at z ∼ 1 than today. We integrate our LFs to determine the FUV luminosity densities and star formation rate densities (SFRDs) from z = 0.2 to 1.2. We find evolution consistent with an increase proportional to (1 + z){sup 1.9} out to z ∼ 1. Our luminosity densities and star formation rates are consistent with those found in the literature but are, on average, a factor of ∼2 higher than previous FUV measurements. In addition, we combine our UVOT data with the MUSYC survey to model the galaxies’ ultraviolet-to-infrared spectral energy distributions and estimate the rest-frame FUV attenuation. We find that accounting for the attenuation increases the SFRDs by ∼1 dex across all four redshift bins.

• OSTI ID: 22525687
• Journal Information: Astrophysical Journal, Journal Name: Astrophysical Journal Journal Issue: 2 Vol. 808; ISSN ASJOAB; ISSN 0004-637X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
ATTENUATION
COSMOLOGY
DENSITY
ENERGY SPECTRA
FAR ULTRAVIOLET RADIATION
GALAXIES
INFRARED SPECTRA
LUMINOSITY
MASS
MAXIMUM-LIKELIHOOD FIT
NEAR ULTRAVIOLET RADIATION
RED SHIFT
STAR EVOLUTION
STARS
TELESCOPES