AMICO galaxy clusters in KiDS-DR3: Evolution of the luminosity function between z=0.1 and z=0.8

TL;DR

This study analyzes the evolution of galaxy luminosity functions in clusters from redshift 0.1 to 0.8, revealing passive evolution of bright galaxies and dependencies on cluster richness and mass.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of the luminosity function evolution in galaxy clusters across a wide redshift and mass range, using a large KiDS-DR3 dataset.

Findings

Bright red and total galaxy populations show passive evolution with redshift.

The density parameter Φ* increases with cluster richness.

The faint-end slope is shallower in richer clusters.

Abstract

By means of the $r$-band luminosity function (LF) of galaxies in a sample of about 4000 clusters detected by the cluster finder AMICO in the KiDS-DR3 area of about 400 deg$^2$, we studied the evolution with richness and redshift of the passive evolving (red), star-forming (blue), and total galaxy populations. This analysis was performed for clusters in the redshift range [0.1,0.8] and in the mass range [$10^{13} M_{\odot}$,$10^{15} M_{\odot}$]. To compute LFs, we binned the luminosity distribution in magnitude and statistically subtracted the background. Then, we divided the cluster sample in bins of both redshift and richness/mass. We stacked LF counts in each 2D bin for the total, red, and blue galaxy populations; finally, we fitted the stacked LF with a Schechter function and studied the trend of its parameters with redshift and richness/mass. We found a passive evolution with $z$ for the bright part of the LF for the red and total populations and no significant trends for the faint galaxies. The mass/richness dependence is clear for the density parameter $\Phi_{\star}$, increasing with richness, and for the total population faint end, which is shallower in the rich clusters.