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K. Flint, M. Bolte (UCO/Lick Observatory), C. Mendes de Oliveira (Instituto Astronomico e Geofisico, USP)
We present the results of a survey of the Leo I group for MR \leq -10\ dwarf galaxies. This survey is part of a larger effort to measure the faint-end of the galaxy luminosity function in poor groups to faint limiting magnitudes and surface brightnesses. With the KPNO 0.9m+MOSAIC we have surveyed over 7 square degrees in the Leo I group and over 12 square degrees in the Coma I group. We employ a matched filter technique to robustly detect diffuse dwarf galaxies at a distance of 10 Mpc. Our photometric catalog includes morphological membership selection, guided by a representative sample of follow-up distance measurements from redshifts as well as I-band surface-brightness fluctuations of our most diffuse dwarf candidates. We further quantify our selection effects as a function of total R-band magnitude and central surface brightness with extensive Montecarlo simulations, and fold these weights in to our determination of the faint-end of the galaxy luminosity function. While our method is optimized to find Local-Group-like dwarfs, we also find we are successful at detecting very large LSB dwarfs in the Leo I group --- a type of galaxy first found in Virgo (Impey et al. 1988, ApJ, 330, 634) which seems to be absent from the Local Group.
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The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: flint@ucolick.org