Year: 1998
Type: article
Abstract: A new method is presented to obtain a non-parametric maximum likelihood estimate of the luminosity function and the selection function of a flux-limited redshift survey. The method parametrizes the selection function as a series of stepwise power laws and allows possible evolution of the luminosity function. We also propose a new technique to estimate the rate of evolution of the luminosity function. This is based on a minimization of the observed large-scale power with respect to the evolutionary model. We use an ensemble of mock surveys extracted from an N-body simulation to verify the power of this method. We apply our estimators to the 1.2-Jy survey of IRAS galaxies. We find a far-infrared luminosity function in good agreement with previously published results and evidence for rather strong evolution. If the comoving number density of IRAS galaxies is assumed to scale ∝ (1 + z)P, we estimate P = 4.3 ± 1.4.
Authors: V. Springel, S. D. M. White
Institution: Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics
Language: English
Subfield: Astronomy and Astrophysics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W2011102911