Galaxy Luminosity Function in Groups

MURIEL, H.; VALOTTO, C.A.; LAMBAS, D. G.

ASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL

IOP PUBLISHING LTD

Lugar: Londres; Año: 1998 vol. 56 p. 540 - 544

0004-637X

We compute the luminosity function (LF) of galaxies in groups. The data consist of groups of galaxies selected in distance and redshift space in two samples comprising a total number of 66 groups. The assignment of galaxies to the groups was derived from the Edinburgh-Durham Southern Galaxy Catalog, considering a limiting apparent magnitude mlim = 19.4. We find a flat faint end of the mean galaxy LF in groups, which is in contrast to the mean galaxy LF in clusters where a large relative number of faint galaxies is present. We find that a Schechter function with parameters M* ~= -19.6 +/- 0.2, α ~= -1.0 +/- 0.2 provides a satisfactory fit to the galaxy LF of our total sample of groups in the range of absolute magnitudes -22 < M < -16.