The evolution of the faint end of the UV luminosity function during the peak epoch of star formation (1<3)
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Riverside, CA 92521 (United States)
- Centre de Recherche Astrophysique de Lyon, Université Lyon 1, 9 Avenue Charles André, F-69561 Saint Genis Laval Cedex (France)
- Goddard Space Flight Center, Code 665, Greenbelt, MD 20771 (United States)
- Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD (United States)
- Aix Marseille Univ, CNRS, LAM, Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Marseille, Marseille (France)
- Minnesota Institute for Astrophysics, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455 (United States)
- Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of California, Santa Cruz, 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA 95064,USA (United States)
- Infrared Processing and Analysis Center, Caltech, Pasadena, CA 91125 (United States)
We present a robust measurement of the rest-frame UV luminosity function (LF) and its evolution during the peak epoch of cosmic star formation at 1<3. We use our deep near-ultraviolet imaging from WFC3/UVIS on the Hubble Space Telescope and existing Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS)/WFC and WFC3/IR imaging of three lensing galaxy clusters, Abell 2744 and MACS J0717 from the Hubble Frontier Field survey and Abell 1689. Combining deep UV imaging and high magnification from strong gravitational lensing, we use photometric redshifts to identify 780 ultra-faint galaxies with M{sub UV}<−12.5 AB mag at 1<3. From these samples, we identified five new, faint, multiply imaged systems in A1689. We run a Monte Carlo simulation to estimate the completeness correction and effective volume for each cluster using the latest published lensing models. We compute the rest-frame UV LF and find the best-fit faint-end slopes of α=−1.56±0.04, α=−1.72±0.04, and α=−1.94±0.06 at 1.0<1.6, 1.6<2.2, and 2.2<3.0, respectively. Our results demonstrate that the UV LF becomes steeper from z∼1.3 to z∼2.6 with no sign of a turnover down to M{sub UV}=−14 AB mag. We further derive the UV LFs using the Lyman break “dropout” selection and confirm the robustness of our conclusions against different selection methodologies. Because the sample sizes are so large and extend to such faint luminosities, the statistical uncertainties are quite small, and systematic uncertainties (due to the assumed size distribution, for example) likely dominate. If we restrict our analysis to galaxies and volumes above >50% completeness in order to minimize these systematics, we still find that the faint-end slope is steep and getting steeper with redshift, though with slightly shallower (less negative) values (α=−1.55±0.06, −1.69 ± 0.07, and −1.79 ± 0.08 for z∼1.3, 1.9, and 2.6, respectively). Finally, we conclude that the faint star-forming galaxies with UV magnitudes of −18.5
- OSTI ID:
- 22868447
- Journal Information:
- Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 832, Issue 1; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0004-637X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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