The Ultraviolet Luminosity Function at 0.6 < z < 1 from UVCANDELS

September 2024 • 2024ApJ...972....8S

Authors • Sun, Lei • Wang, Xin • Teplitz, Harry I. • Mehta, Vihang • Alavi, Anahita • Rafelski, Marc • Windhorst, Rogier A. • Scarlata, Claudia • Gardner, Jonathan P. • Smith, Brent M. • Sunnquist, Ben • Prichard, Laura • Cheng, Yingjie • Grogin, Norman • Hathi, Nimish P. • Hayes, Matthew • Koekemoer, Anton M. • Mobasher, Bahram • Nedkova, Kalina V. • O'Connell, Robert • Robertson, Brant • Taamoli, Sina • Yung, L. Y. Aaron • Brammer, Gabriel • Colbert, James • Conselice, Christopher • Gawiser, Eric • Guo, Yicheng • Jansen, Rolf A. • Ji, Zhiyuan • Lucas, Ray A. • Rutkowski, Michael • Siana, Brian • Vanzella, Eros • Ashcraft, Teresa • Bagley, Micaela • Baronchelli, Ivano • Barro, Guillermo • Blanche, Alex • Broussard, Adam • Carleton, Timothy • Chartab, Nima • Codoreanu, Alex • Cohen, Seth • Dai, Y. Sophia • Darvish, Behnam • Davé, Romeel • Degroot, Laura • de Mello, Duilia • Dickinson, Mark • Emami, Najmeh • Ferguson, Henry • Ferreira, Leonardo • Finkelstein, Keely • Finkelstein, Steven • Gburek, Timothy • Giavalisco, Mauro • Grazian, Andrea • Gronwall, Caryl • Hemmati, Shoubaneh • Howell, Justin • Iyer, Kartheik • Kaviraj, Sugata • Kurczynski, Peter • Lazar, Ilin • MacKenty, John • Mantha, Kameswara Bharadwaj • Martin, Alec • Martin, Garreth • McCabe, Tyler • Olsen, Charlotte • Otteson, Lillian • Ravindranath, Swara • Redshaw, Caleb • Sattari, Zahra • Soto, Emmaris • Zabelle, Bonnabelle • The Uvcandels Team

Abstract • UVCANDELS is a Hubble Space Telescope Cycle-26 Treasury Program awarded 164 orbits of primary ultraviolet (UV) F275W imaging and coordinated parallel optical F435W imaging in four CANDELS fields—GOODS-N, GOODS-S, EGS, and COSMOS—covering a total area of ∼426 arcmin². This is ∼2.7 times larger than the area covered by previous deep-field space UV data combined, reaching a depth of about 27 and 28 ABmag (5σ in 0."2 apertures) for F275W and F435W, respectively. Along with new photometric catalogs, we present an analysis of the rest-frame UV luminosity function (LF), relying on our UV-optimized aperture photometry method, yielding a factor of 1.5 increase over H-isophot aperture photometry in the signal-to-noise ratios of galaxies in our F275W imaging. Using well-tested photometric redshift measurements, we identify 5810 galaxies at redshifts 0.6 < z < 1, down to an absolute magnitude of M _UV = ‑14.2. In order to minimize the effect of uncertainties in estimating the completeness function, especially at the faint end, we restrict our analysis to sources above 30% completeness, which provides a final sample of 4726 galaxies at ‑21.5 < M _UV < ‑15.5. We performed a maximum likelihood estimate to derive the best-fit parameters of the UV LF. We report a best-fit faint-end slope of α=‑1.359‑0.041+0.041 at z ∼ 0.8. Creating subsamples at z ∼ 0.7 and z ∼ 0.9, we observe a possible evolution of α with redshift. The unobscured UV luminosity density at M _UV < ‑10 is derived as ρUV=1.339‑0.030+0.027(×1026ergs‑1Hz‑1Mpc‑3) using our best-fit LF parameters. The new F275W and F435 photometric catalogs from UVCANDELS have been made publicly available on the Barbara A. Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes.

Links

• SIMBAD http://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/simbo.pl?bibcode=2024ApJ...972....8S
• PREPRINT http://arxiv.org/abs/2311.15664
• ELECTR https://doi.org/10.3847%2F1538-4357%2Fad5540