skip to main content
OSTI.GOV title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: PHOTOMETRIC PROPERTIES AND LUMINOSITY FUNCTION OF NEARBY MASSIVE EARLY-TYPE GALAXIES

Journal Article · · Astrophysical Journal
 [1]; ;  [2];  [3];  [4];  [5]
  1. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049 (China)
  2. Tianjin Astrophysics Center, Tianjin Normal University, Tianjin 300387 (China)
  3. Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240 (China)
  4. National Astronomical Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 20A Datun Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing 100012 (China)
  5. Partner Group of the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics at the Shanghai Astronomical Observatory and Key Laboratory for Research in Galaxies and Cosmology of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nandan Road 80, Shanghai 200030 (China)

We perform photometric analyses of a bright early-type galaxy sample with 2949 galaxies (M{sub r} < -22.5 mag) in the redshift range of 0.05-0.15, drawn from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) DR7 with morphological classification from Galaxy Zoo 1. We measure the Petrosian and isophotal magnitudes, as well as the corresponding half-light radius for each galaxy. We find that for the brightest galaxies (M{sub r} < -23 mag), our Petrosian magnitudes and isophotal magnitudes to 25 mag arcsec{sup -2} and 1% of the sky brightness are on average 0.16 mag, 0.20 mag, and 0.26 mag brighter than the SDSS Petrosian values, respectively. In the first case, the underestimations are caused by overestimations in the sky background by the SDSS PHOTO algorithm, while the latter two are also due to deeper photometry. Similarly, the typical half-light radii (r{sub 50}) measured by the SDSS algorithm are smaller than our measurements. As a result, the bright end of the r-band luminosity function is found to decline more slowly than previous works. Our measured luminosity densities at the bright end are more than one order of magnitude higher than those of Blanton et al., and the stellar mass densities at M{sub *} {approx} 5 Multiplication-Sign 10{sup 11} M{sub Sun} and M{sub *} {approx} 10{sup 12} M{sub Sun} are a few tenths and a factor of a few higher than those of Bernardi et al. These results may significantly alleviate the tension in the assembly of massive galaxies between observations and predictions of the hierarchical structure formation model.

OSTI ID:
22140271
Journal Information:
Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 773, Issue 1; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0004-637X
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

Similar Records

COLOR-MAGNITUDE RELATION AND MORPHOLOGY OF LOW-REDSHIFT ULIRGs IN SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY
Journal Article · Thu Apr 01 00:00:00 EDT 2010 · Astrophysical Journal · OSTI ID:22140271

THE FAINT END OF THE LUMINOSITY FUNCTION AND LOW SURFACE BRIGHTNESS GALAXIES
Journal Article · Sun Apr 15 00:00:00 EDT 2012 · Astronomical Journal (New York, N.Y. Online) · OSTI ID:22140271

Low surface brightness galaxies selected from the 40% sky area of the ALFALFA H i Survey. I. Sample and statistical properties
Journal Article · Mon Jun 01 00:00:00 EDT 2015 · The Astronomical Journal (Online) · OSTI ID:22140271