The Mass Function of Void Galaxies in the SDSS Data Release 2
Abstract
We estimate the Mass Function of void galaxies in the second public data release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey from a sample of 1000 galaxies with local density contrasts of delta_v < -0.6. The galaxy sample is split into ellipticals and spirals using a color-Sersic index criteria. We estimate the virial masses of ellipticals using the measured spectral line-widths along with the observed size. Projection effects and uncertainties in halo properties make mass estimates of spirals more difficult. We use an inversion of the Tully-Fisher relation to estimate the isothermal rotational velocity, and introduce a scaling factor to estimate the halo extent. We then fit the measured mass function against a theoretical Press-Schechter model, and find that the distribution of galaxies in voids appears to be nearly unbiased compared to the mass.
Cite
@article{arxiv.astro-ph/0406527,
title = {The Mass Function of Void Galaxies in the SDSS Data Release 2},
author = {David M. Goldberg and Timothy D. Jones and Fiona Hoyle and Randall R. Rojas and Michael S. Vogeley and Michael R. Blanton},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/0406527},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
9 pages, 5 postscript figures. Accepted to Astrophysical Journal; Revisions in response to referee comments