Understand
We study the UV luminosity functions (LFs) at $z\sim 4$, $5$, $6,$ and $7$ based on the deep large-area optical images taken by the Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC) Subaru strategic program (SSP).
- On the 100 deg$^2$ sky of the HSC SSP data available to date, we make enormous samples consisting of a total of 579,565 dropout candidates at $z\sim 4-7$ by the standard color selection technique, 358 out of which are spectroscopically confirmed by our follow-up spectroscopy and other studies.
- We obtain UV LFs at $z \sim 4-7$ that span a very wide UV luminosity range of $\sim 0.002 - 100 \, L_{\rm UV}^\ast$ ($-26 < M_{\rm UV} < -14$ mag) by combining LFs from our program and the ultra-deep Hubble Space Telescope legacy surveys.
- We derive three parameters of the best-fit Schechter function, $\phi^\ast$, $M_{\rm UV}^\ast$, and $\alpha$, of the UV LFs in the magnitude range where the AGN contribution is negligible, and find that $\alpha$ and $\phi^\ast$ decrease from $z\sim 4$ to $7$ with no significant evolution of $M_{\rm UV}^\ast$.