Creat your own Galaxy Luminosity Function



Welcome to my Galaxy Luminosity Function Engine. You can use the form below to create your own B-band luminosity function (LF) of a volume-limited galaxy population. The assumption is that the shapes of the type-specific LF of ellipticals (E), lenticulars (S0), spirals (Sp), dwarf irregulars (dIrr), and dwarf ellipticals (dE) are invariant of the environment and thus the observed variation of the overall LFs from galaxy clusters to the field has its origin in the different type mixtures (known as the morphology-density relation). To calculate the overall LF we employ different analytical expressions for the LFs of the five main Hubble types. The default shape parameters for the LFs of the three classical Hubble types E, S0, and Sp were taken from Jerjen & Tammann 1997, A&A, 321, 713 while the parameters for dwarf irregulars and dwarf ellipticals come from Sandage, Binggeli, & Tammann, AJ, 1985, 90, 1759. All parameters can be changed according to your preferences using the parameter boxes. Simply give the type mixture of the galaxy population for all galaxies brighter than the absolute magnitude M_lim. (Note: if you use this form several times, please reload the image with the final result as this is not done automatically yet.)

Simulation Parameters:

(A) Type mixture for galaxies brighter than M_lim= (keep -21.0 < M_lim<-13.0)

E %: S0 %: Spirals %: Dwarf irregulars %: Dwarf ellipticals %

(B) Shapes of Type-Specific Luminosity Functions

E (Gaussian with two dispersion wings): M* sigma (bright end) sigma (faint end)
S0 (Gaussian): M* sigma
Spirals (Gaussian): M* sigma
dIrr (Schechter): M* alpha
dE (Schechter): M* alpha