Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA): bivariate functions of Hα star-forming galaxies

M. L. P. Gunawardhana, A. M. Hopkins, E. N. Taylor, J. Bland-Hawthorn, P. Norberg, I. K. Baldry, J. Loveday, M. S. Owers, S. M. Wilkins, M. Colless, M. J. I. Brown, S. P. Driver, M. Alpaslan, S. Brough, M. Cluver, S. Croom, L. Kelvin, M. A. Lara-López, J. Liske, A. R. López-SánchezA. S.G. Robotham

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    19 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    We present bivariate luminosity and stellar mass functions of Hα star-forming galaxies drawn from the Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA) survey. While optically deep spectroscopic observations of GAMA over a wide sky area enable the detection of a large number of 0.001 < SFR(M yr-1) < 100 galaxies, the requirement for an Hα detection in targets selected from an r-band magnitude-limited survey leads to an incompleteness due to missing optically faint star-forming galaxies. Using z < 0.1 bivariate distributions as a reference we model the higher-z distributions, thereby approximating a correction for the missing optically faint star-forming galaxies to the local star formation rate (SFR) and M densities. Furthermore, we obtain the r-band luminosity functions (LFs) and stellar mass functions of Hα star-forming galaxies from the bivariate LFs.As our sample is selected on the basis of detectedHα emission, a direct tracer of ongoing star formation, this sample represents a true star-forming galaxy sample, and is drawn from both photometrically classified blue and red subpopulations, though mostly from the blue population. On average 20-30 per cent of red galaxies at all stellar masses are star forming, implying that these galaxies may be dusty star-forming systems.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)875-901
    Number of pages27
    JournalMonthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
    Volume447
    Issue number1
    Early online date20 Nov 2014
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 11 Feb 2015

    Keywords

    • surveys
    • galaxies: evolution
    • galaxies: luminosity function, mass function
    • galaxies: star formation

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