The Morphological Type Dependence of K-band Luminosity Functions
Abstract
Differential 2.2um (K-band) luminosity functions are presented for a complete sample of 1570 nearby Vgsr < 3000 km/s, where Vgsr is the velocity measured with respect to the Galactic standard of rest), bright (K < 10 mag), galaxies segregated by visible morphology. The K-band luminosity function for late-type spirals follows a power law that rises towards low luminosities whereas the K-band luminosity functions for ellipticals, lenticulars and bulge-dominated spirals are peaked with a fall off at both high and low luminosities. However, each morphological type (E, S0, S0/a-Sab, Sb-Sbc, Sc-Scd) contributes approximately equally to the overall K-band luminosity density in the local universe, and by inference, the stellar mass density as well.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.0902.0778,
title = {The Morphological Type Dependence of K-band Luminosity Functions},
author = {Nick Devereux and Paul Hriljac and S. P. Willner and M. L. N. Ashby and C. N. A. Willmer},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0902.0778},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
To be published in Galaxy Evolution: Emerging Insights and Future Challenges, ed. S. Jogee et al. Astron. Soc. Pacific 2009. This conference proceeding summarizes Devereux et al., 2009, ApJ submitted. 4 pages, 1 figure, requires asp2006.sty