The ALHAMBRA survey : $B-$band luminosity function of quiescent and star-forming galaxies at $0.2\le z<1$ by PDF analysis

Abstract

Our goal is to study the evolution of the $B-$band luminosity function (LF) since $z=1$ using ALHAMBRA data. We used the photometric redshift and the $I-$band selection magnitude probability distribution functions (PDFs) of those ALHAMBRA galaxies with $I\le 24$ mag to compute the posterior LF. We statistically studied quiescent and star-forming galaxies using the template information encoded in the PDFs. The LF covariance matrix in redshift-magnitude-galaxy type space was computed, including the cosmic variance. That was estimated from the intrinsic dispersion of the LF measurements in the 48 ALHAMBRA sub-fields. The uncertainty due to the photometric redshift prior is also included in our analysis. We modelled the LF with a redshift-dependent Schechter function affected by the same selection effects than the data. The measured ALHAMBRA LF at $0.2\le z<1$ and the evolving Schechter parameters both for quiescent and star-forming galaxies agree with previous results in the literature. The estimated redshift evolution of $M_B^{\ast }\propto Qz$ is $Q_{\mathrm{SF}}=-1.03\pm 0.08$ and $Q_{\mathrm{Q}}=-0.80\pm 0.08$, and of $\log \ddot{I}{•}^{\ast }\propto Pz$ is $P_{\mathrm{SF}}=-0.01\pm 0.03$ and $P_{\mathrm{Q}}=-0.41\pm 0.05$. The measured faint-end slopes are $\hat{I}{\pm }_{\mathrm{SF}}=-1.29\pm 0.02$ and $\hat{I}{\pm }_{\mathrm{Q}}=-0.53\pm 0.04$. We find a significant population of faint quiescent galaxies, modelled by a second Schechter function with slope ${\hat{I}}^2=-1.31\pm 0.11$. We find a factor $2.55\pm 0.14$ decrease in the luminosity density $j_B$ of star-forming galaxies, and a factor $1.25\pm 0.16$ increase in the $j_B$ of quiescent ones since $z=1$, confirming the continuous build-up of the quiescent population with cosmic time. The contribution of the faint quiescent population to $j_B$ increases from 3% at $z=1$ to 6% at $z=0$. The developed methodology will be applied to future multi-filter surveys such as J-PAS.

Accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysics. 25 pages, 20 figures, 7 tables