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An analytic expression for the luminosity function for galaxies.
Abstract
A new analytic approximation for the luminosity function for galaxies is proposed, which shows good agreement with both a luminosity distribution for bright nearby galaxies and a composite luminosity distribution for cluster galaxies. The analytic expression is proportional to LlL*, where L* is a characteristic luminosity corresponding to a characteristic absolute magnitude M*B(O) = -20.6. For an individual cluster, the characteristic magnitude may be determined with an accuracy of 0.25 mag, suggesting its use as a standard candle. The analytic expression is used to compute an expected richness-absolute magnitude correlation for first ranked cluster galaxies and an expected dispersion, which are compared with the data of Sand age and Hardy. Subject headings: galaxies: clusters of galaxies: photometry
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Citations
Cited by
Star Formation in the Milky Way and Nearby Galaxies
Kennicutt, R. C., & Evans, N. J. (2012) · Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics · doi:10.1146/annurev-astro-081811-125610 · Cited by 2,902
“The luminosities and masses of galaxies are well represented by an exponentially truncated power-law function (Schechter 1976): Φ(L) = (Φ∗/L∗)(L/L∗)αe(−L/L ∗) (3) The parameter α denotes the slope of the power-law function at low luminosities, and L∗ represents the luminosity above which the number…”
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Yuan, F., & Narayan, R. (2014) · Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics · doi:10.1146/annurev-astro-082812-141003 · Cited by 1,529
The EAGLE simulations of galaxy formation: calibration of subgrid physics and model variations
Crain, R. A., Schaye, J., Bower, R. G., Furlong, M., Schaller, M., Theuns, T., Dalla Vecchia, C., Frenk, C. S., McCarthy, I. G., Helly, J. C., et al. (2015) · Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society · doi:10.1093/mnras/stv725 · Cited by 1,451
The Luminosity Function of Galaxies in SDSS Commissioning Data
Blanton, M. R., Dalcanton, J., Eisenstein, D., Loveday, J., Strauss, M. A., SubbaRao, M., Weinberg, D. H., Anderson, Jr., Annis, J., Bahcall, N. A., et al. (2001) · The Astronomical Journal · doi:10.1086/320405 · Cited by 659
Pérez‐González, P. G., Rieke, G. H., Villar, V., Barro, G., Blaylock, M., Egami, E., Gallego, J., Gil de Paz, A., Pascual, S., Zamorano, J., et al. (2008) · The Astrophysical Journal · doi:10.1086/523690 · Cited by 601
Metadata
- Authors
- Schechter, P.
- Venue
- The Astrophysical Journal
- Publisher
- American Astronomical Society
- Published
- 1976-01
- Volume
- 203
- Pages
- 297
- ISSN
- 0004-637X (ISSN-L)
- 1538-4357
- OpenAlex
- W2024297548
- Cited by
- 2,870
- References
- 0
- FWCI
- 9.38
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
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- Schechter, P. (1976). An analytic expression for the luminosity function for galaxies. The Astrophysical Journal. https://doi.org/10.1086/154079
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