The Distribution of High Redshift Galaxy Colors: Line of Sight Variations in Neutral Hydrogen Absorption

Preprint

15 January 1999

preprint
Published by arXiv in arXiv

https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.astro-ph/9901197

Abstract

We model, via Monte Carlo simulations, the distribution of observed U-B, B-V, V-I galaxy colors in the range 1.75 10^18 cm^2 yield a limiting distribution of high redshift galaxy colors. As one application of our analysis, we consider the sample completeness as a function of redshift for a single spectral energy distribution (SED) given the multi-color selection boundaries for the Hubble Deep Field proposed by Madau et al (1996). We argue that the only correct procedure for estimating the z>3 galaxy luminosity function from color-selected samples is to measure the (observed) distribution of redshifts and intrinsic SED types, and then consider the variation in color for each SED and redshift. A similar argument applies to the estimation of the luminosity function of color-selected, high redshift QSOs.

Keywords

All Related Versions

Version 1, 1999-01-15, ArXiv
Published version: The Astrophysical Journal, 518 (1), 103.

This publication has 0 references indexed in Scilit: