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 < SFRHα(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 language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 875-901 |
| Number of pages | 27 |
| Journal | Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society |
| Volume | 447 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| Early online date | 20 Nov 2014 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 11 Feb 2015 |
Keywords
- surveys
- galaxies: evolution
- galaxies: luminosity function, mass function
- galaxies: star formation