A faint galaxy redshift survey to B=24

Abstract
Using the multislit LDSS-2 spectrograph on the William Herschel Telescope, we have completed a redshift survey in the magnitude range 22.5MED=0.46, and form of the redshift distribution constitute compelling evidence against simple luminosity evolution as an explanation of the large excess of faint galaxies [≃(2-4)×no-evolution] seen in this magnitude range. Rather, we identify the excess population as blue objects with z∼0.4 and B luminosities similar to local L* galaxies, indicating a dramatic decrease in the density of such objects over the last Hubble time, and confirming the trends found in brighter redshift surveys. We also find a marked absence of very low-redshift galaxies (z<0.1) at faint limits, severely constraining any significant steepening of the local field galaxy luminosity function at low luminosities.
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