Galaxy Luminosity Function in Groups

Abstract

We compute the luminosity function of galaxies in groups. The data consists in two samples of groups of galaxies selected in distance and redshift space comprising a total number of 66 groups. The assignment of galaxies to the groups were derived from the Edinburgh-Durham Southern Galaxy Catalog, considering a limiting apparent magnitude $m_{lim}=19.4$. We find a flat faint end of the mean galaxy luminosity function in groups in contrast to the mean galaxy LF in clusters where a large relative number of faint galaxies is present. We find that a Schechter function with parameters $M^{*}\simeq -19.6\pm 0.2,$ $\alpha \simeq -1.0\pm $ 0.2 provides a satisfactory fit to the galaxy LF of our total sample of groups in the range of absolute magnitudes $-22<M<-16$.