Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA) : the galaxy luminosity function within the cosmic web
Abstract
We investigate the dependence of the galaxy luminosity function on geometric environment within the Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA) survey. The tidal tensor prescription, based on the Hessian of the pseudo-gravitational potential, is used to classify the cosmic web and define the geometric environments: for a given smoothing scale, we classify every position of the surveyed region, 0.04 < z < 0.26, as either a void, a sheet, a filament or a knot. We consider how to choose appropriate thresholds in the eigenvalues of the Hessian in order to partition the galaxies approximately evenly between environments. We find a significant variation in the luminosity function of galaxies between different geometric environments; the normalization, characterized by phi* in a Schechter function fit, increases by an order of magnitude from voids to knots. The turnover magnitude, characterized by M*, brightens by approximately 0.5 mag from voids to knots. However, we show that the observed modulation can be entirely attributed to the indirect local-density dependence. We therefore find no evidence of a direct influence of the cosmic web on the galaxy luminosity function.
Citation
Eardley , E , Peacock , J A , McNaught-Roberts , T , Heymans , C , Norberg , P , Alpaslan , M , Baldry , I , Bland-Hawthorn , J , Brough , S , Cluver , M E , Driver , S P , Farrow , D J , Liske , J , Loveday , J & Robotham , A S G 2015 , ' Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA) : the galaxy luminosity function within the cosmic web ' , Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society , vol. 448 , no. 4 , pp. 3665-3678 . https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stv237
Publication
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
0035-8711Type
Journal article
Description
EE acknowledges support from the Science and Technology Facilities Council. TMR acknowledges support from a ERC Starting Grant (DEGAS-259586). CH acknowledges support from the ERC under the EC FP7 grant number 240185. PN acknowledges the support of the Royal Society through the award of a University Research Fellowship and the ERC, through receipt of a Starting Grant (DEGAS- 259586).Collections
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