The CANADA-FRANCE REDSHIFT SURVEY XIII: The luminosity density and star-formation history of the Universe to z ~ 1

The optical luminosity function is a fundamental characterization of the galaxy population. A combination of earlier redshift surveys with two new surveys allows the first accurate determination of the evolution of the luminosity function with redshift, and reveals a marked steepening of the faint end slope. This effect is more profound for star-forming galaxies - there are 5-10 times as many star-forming galaxies at z~0.5 as there are locally. These results, together with hi...

Using the most recent measurements of the ultraviolet (UV) luminosity functions (LFs) and dust estimates of early galaxies, we derive updated dust-corrected star-formation rate functions (SFRFs) at z~4-8, which we model to predict the evolution to higher redshifts, z>8. We employ abundance matching techniques to calibrate a relation between galaxy star formation rate (SFR) and host halo mass M$_{h}$ by mapping the shape of the observed SFRFs at z~4-8 to that of the halo mass ...

I review a technique for interpreting faint galaxy data which traces the evolution with cosmic time of the galaxy luminosity density, as determined from several deep spectroscopic samples and the HDF. The method relies on the rest frame UV and near-IR continua of galaxies as indicators, for a given IMF and dust content, of their instantaneous SFR and total stellar mass, and offers the prospect of addressing in a coherent framework an important set of subjects: cosmic star for...

We report the results of J-band infrared spectroscopy of a sample of 13 z=1 field galaxies drawn from the Canada-France Redshift Survey, targeting galaxies whose redshifts place the rest frame H-alpha line emission from HII regions in between the bright night sky OH lines. As a result we detect emission down to a flux limit of ~10^{-16} ergs cm^{-2} s^{-1} corresponding to a luminosity limit of ~10^{41} ergs at this redshift for a H_0=50 km s^{-1} Mpc,^{-1} q_0=0.5 cosmology....

We present the evolution of the comoving SFR density in the redshift range 0 < z < 5 using the first epoch data release of the VVDS, that is 11564 spectra selected at I_AB=24 over 2200 arcmin^2 in two fields of view, the VVDS-0226-04 and the VVDS-CDFS-0332-27, and the cosmological parameters (Omega_M, Omega_L, h)=(0.3, 0.7, 0.7). We study the multi-wavelength non dust-corrected luminosity densities at 0 < z < 2 from the rest-frame FUV to the optical passbands, and the rest-fr...

We investigate the evolution of the universal rest-frame ultraviolet luminosity density from z = 1.5 to the present. We analyze an extensive sample of multicolor data (U', B, V = 24.5) plus spectroscopic redshifts from the Hawaii Survey Fields and the Hubble Deep Field. Our multicolor data allow us to select our sample in the rest-frame ultraviolet (2500 angstrom) over the entire redshift range to z = 1.5. We conclude that the evolution in the luminosity density is a function...

We present the first results on the history of star formation in the Universe based on the `cosmic spectrum', in particular, the volume-averaged, luminosity-weighted, stellar absorption line spectrum of present day galaxies from the 2dFGRS. This method is novel in that unlike previous studies it is not an estimator based on total luminosity density. The cosmic spectrum is fitted with models of population synthesis, tracing the history of star formation prior to the epoch of t...

We present a detailed interpretation of the spectrum of the cosmic infrared background longwards of 5 microns and of galaxy counts from various surveys at mid-infrared, far-infrared and submillimeter wavelengths by evolving the mid-infrared local luminosity function with redshift. We find that all evolutionary models that fit the counts require a flattening at z~0.8 to avoid overproducing the CIRB. About 80% of the 140 micron CIRB is produced at 0 < z < 1.5 while only about 3...

Using deep observations of the Chandra Deep Field South obtained with MIPS at 24mic, we present our preliminary estimates on the evolution of the infrared (IR) luminosity density of the Universe from z=0 to z~1. We find that a pure density evolution of the IR luminosity function is clearly excluded by the data. The characteristic luminosity L_IR* evolves at least by (1+z)^3.5 with lookback time, but our monochromatic approach does not allow us to break the degeneracy between ...

We present a determination of the `Cosmic Optical Spectrum' of the Universe, i.e. the ensemble emission from galaxies, as determined from the red-selected Sloan Digital Sky Survey main galaxy sample and compare with previous results of the blue-selected 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey. Broadly we find good agreement in both the spectrum and the derived star-formation histories. If we use a power-law star-formation history model where star-formation rate $\propto (1+z)^\beta$ out t...