The effects of starbursts and low-surface-brightness galaxies on faint galaxy models

Jun, 1995
32 pages
Published in:
  • Astrophys.J. 454 (1995) 611
e-Print:

Citations per year

19962000200420082011310
Abstract: (arXiv)
We present models predicting the magnitude, redshift, and color distributions of field galaxies. We explore whether a fading starburst scenario can account for the observations of faint blue galaxies. We marginally rule out a starburst scenario with a local IMF because the models predict too many nearby faint galaxies that are not observed. A burst model with a truncated IMF reproduces the counts and redshift distributions well but produces too blue a population. We show that surface brightness selection has a significant effect on the distributions. In particular, adding a population of low-surface brightness galaxies, known to exist locally, can explain the counts for BJ<23B_J<23. They do not, however, account for the steepness of the counts at fainter magnitudes. Finally we show that the colors of galaxies in a KK-band selected sample are too blue to be consistent with a constant star-formation rate, passive-evolution model.