The H$\alpha$ and [O III] $\lambda 5007$ Luminosity Functions of $1.2<z<1.9$ Emission-Line Galaxies from HST Grism Spectroscopy

Abstract

Euclid and the Roman Space Telescope (Roman) will soon use grism spectroscopy to detect millions of galaxies via H$\alpha$ and [O III] $\lambda 5007$ emission. To better constrain the expected galaxy counts from these instruments, we use a vetted sample of 4,239 emission-line galaxies from the 3D-HST survey to measure the H$\alpha$ and [O III] $\lambda 5007$ luminosity functions between $1.16<z<1.90$; this sample is $\sim 4$ times larger than previous studies at this redshift. We find very good agreement with previous measurements for H$\alpha$, but for [O III], we predict a higher number of intermediate-luminosity galaxies than previous works. We find that for both lines, the characteristic luminosity, ${\mathcal{L}}_{\ast }$, increases monotonically with redshift, and use the H$\alpha$ luminosity function to calculate the epoch's cosmic star formation rate density. We find that H$\alpha$-visible galaxies account for $\sim 81\%$ of the epoch's total star formation rate, and this value changes very little over the $1.16<z<1.56$ redshift range. Finally, we derive the surface density of galaxies as a function of limiting flux and find that previous predictions for galaxy counts for the Euclid Wide Survey are unchanged, but there may be more [O III] galaxies in the Roman High Latitude Survey than previously estimated.

21 pages, 10 figures; Accepted for publication in ApJ

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