The influence of Red Spiral Galaxies on the Shape of the Local K-Band Luminosity Function

Abstract

We have determined K-band luminosity functions for 13,325 local Universe galaxies as a function of morphology and color (for K_tot <= 10.75). Our sample is drawn from the 2MASS Extended Source Catalog, with all sample galaxies having measured morphologies and distances (including 4,219 archival redshift-independent distances). The luminosity function for our total sample is in good agreement with previous works, but is relatively smooth at faint magnitudes (due to bulk flow distance corrections). We investigated the differences due to morphological and color-selection using 5,417 sample galaxies with NASA Sloan Atlas optical colors and find that red spirals comprise 20 to 50% of all spirals with -25 <= M_K < -20. Fainter than M_K = -24, red spirals are as common as early-types, explaining the different faint end slopes (alpha = -0.87 and -1.00 for red and early-types, respectively). While we find red spirals comprise more than 50% of all M_K < -25 spiral galaxies, they do not dominate the bright end of the overall red galaxy luminosity function, which is dominated by early-type galaxies. The brightest red spirals have ongoing star formation and those without are frequently misclassified as early-types. The faintest ones have an appearance and Sersic indices consistent with faded disks, rather than true bulge dominated galaxies.

References in corpus (18)

• The UKIRT Infrared Deep Sky Survey (UKIDSS)
• Improved Cosmological Constraints from New, Old and Combined Supernova Datasets
• Observational Constraints on the Nature of the Dark Energy: First Cosmological Results from the ESSENCE Supernova Survey
• Improved Dark Energy Constraints from ~100 New CfA Supernova Type Ia Light Curves
• Galaxy Zoo 1 : Data Release of Morphological Classifications for nearly 900,000 galaxies
• The ACS Nearby Galaxy Survey Treasury
• Structural Properties of Pseudo-Bulges, Classical Bulges and Elliptical Galaxies: an SDSS Perspective
• Metallicity Effects on Dust Properties in Starbursting Galaxies
• Kinematics of the Local Universe XIII. 21-cm line measurements of 452 galaxies with the Nançay radiotelescope, JHK Tully-Fisher relation and preliminary maps of the peculiar velocity field
• The Fundamental Properties of Galaxies and a New Galaxy Classification System
• The STAGES view of red spirals and dusty red galaxies: Mass-dependent quenching of star-formation in cluster infall
• Associations of Dwarf Galaxies
• Near-Infrared and Optical Luminosity Functions from the 6dF Galaxy Survey
• The Millennium Galaxy Catalogue: The luminosity functions of bulges and discs and their implied stellar mass densities
• SFI++ II: A New I-band Tully-Fisher Catalog, Derivation of Peculiar Velocities and Dataset Properties
• The zCOSMOS redshift survey: the three-dimensional classification cube and bimodality in galaxy physical properties
• Nearby Galaxies in the 2micron All Sky Survey I. K-band Luminosity Functions
• The Hubble Constant from Type Ia Supernova Calibrated with the Linear and Non-Linear Cepheid Period-Luminosity Relation

Cited by in corpus (10)

• Multiple Mechanisms Quench Passive Spiral Galaxies
• Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA): Properties and evolution of red spiral galaxies
• HI galaxies with little star formation: an abundance of LIERs
• BASS. XXXVI. Constraining the Local Supermassive Black Hole - Halo Connection with BASS DR2 AGN
• Evolution of the Stellar Mass Function and Infrared Luminosity Function of Galaxies since $z=1.2$
• NUV signatures of environment driven galaxy quenching in SDSS groups
• The Highest-Energy Cosmic Rays Cannot be Dominantly Protons from Steady Sources
• The origin and properties of red spirals: Insights from cosmological simulations
• The Growth Rate of Supermassive Black Holes and Its Dependence on the Stellar Mass of Galaxies at the Present Epoch
• Quantifying the Poor Purity and Completeness of Morphological Samples Selected by Galaxy Colour