AAS 197, January 2001
Session 27. Early Science from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
Special Session Oral, Monday, January 8, 2001, 1:30-3:00pm, San Diego

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[27.03] The Luminosity Function of Galaxies from SDSS Commissioning Data

M. R. Blanton (Fermilab), J. Dalcanton (Univ. of Washington), D. Eisenstein (U. Chicago), J. Loveday (Sussex), M. Strauss (Princeton), M. SubbaRao (U. Chicago), D. Weinberg (OSU), J. Annis (Fermilab), N. Bahcall (Princeton), M. Bernardi (U. Chicago), J. Brinkmann (APO), S. Burles (Fermilab), L. Carey (Univ. of Washington), F. Castander (U. Chicago), A. Connolly (U. Pitt.), D. Finkbeiner (Berkeley), S. Friedman (JHU), J. Frieman (Fermilab), M. Fukugita (IAS), J. Gunn, R. Lupton (Princeton), S. Kent (Fermilab), F. Leger (Univ. of Washington), D. Long (APO), A. Meiksin (Edinburgh), A. Merrelli (Caltech), M. Newcomb, R. Nichol (CMU), R. Owen (Univ. of Washington), A. Pope (JHU), M. Postman (STScI), C. Rockosi (U. Chicago), D. Schlegel (Princeton), W. Siegmund (Univ. of Washington), S. Smee (U. Maryland), Y. Snir (CMU), C. Stubbs (Univ. of Washington), A. Szalay, C. Tremonti (JHU), D. Tucker (Fermilab), A. Uomoto (JHU), D.E. Vanden Berk (Fermilab), P. Waddell (Univ. of Washington), B. Yanny (Fermilab), Sloan Digital Sky Survey Collaboration

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) already has compiled one of the largest redshift samples of galaxies selected from CCD images. From a portion of this data, consisting of around 11,000 objects complete to r=17.6, over about 140 square degrees, we have calculated the luminosity function of galaxies and the luminosity density of the universe. We do so using five optical bandpasses: u, g, r, i, and z. We calculate the correlation of r-band luminosity with half-light surface brightness, intrinsic g-r color, and morphology, showing that high surface brightness, red, early-type galaxies are on average more luminous than low surface brightness, blue, late-type galaxies, in agreement with previous results. If we convert our results into the Las Campanas Redshift Survey (LCRS) version of the R-band, we find baout 2.5 times the luminosity density found in the LCRS. If we convert our results to the bj band, we find about 1.4 times the luminosity found in the Two-degree Field Galaxy Redshift Survey (2dFGRS). When we measure the magnitudes of SDSS galaxies using the same isophotal limits and including the other selection effects of these two surveys, we obtain luminosity functions consistent with theirs.

The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: blanton@fnal.gov

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