Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Galaxy And Mass Assembly (Gama) : Stellar Mass Functions By Hubble Type., Lee S. Kelvin, Simon P. Driver, Aaron S. G. Robotham, Edward N. Taylor, Alister W. Graham, Mehmet Alpaslan, Ivan K. Baldry, Steven P. Bamford, Amanda E. Bauer, Joss Bland-Hawthorn, Michael J. I. Brown, Matthew Colless, Christopher J. Conselice, Benne W. Holwerda, Andrew M. Hopkins, Maritza A. Lara-Lopez, Jochen Liske, Angel R. Lopez-Sanchez, Jonathan Loveday, Peder Norberg, Steven Phillipps, Cristina C. Popescu, Matthew Prescott, Anne E. Sansom, Richard J. Tuffs

Faculty Scholarship

We present an estimate of the galaxy stellar mass function and its division by morphological type in the local (0.025 < z < 0.06) Universe. Adopting robust morphological classifications as previously presented (Kelvin et al.) for a sample of 3727 galaxies taken from the Galaxy And Mass Assembly survey, we define a local volume and stellar mass limited sub-sample of 2711 galaxies to a lower stellar mass limit of M=109.0M⊙ M=109.0M⊙ . We confirm that the galaxy stellar mass function is well described by a double-Schechter function given by M∗=1010.64M⊙ M∗=1010.64M⊙ , α1 = −0.43, ϕ∗1=4.18dex−1Mpc−3 ϕ1∗=4.18dex−1Mpc−3 , α2 = −1.50 and ϕ∗2=0.74dex−1Mpc−3 ϕ2∗=0.74dex−1Mpc−3 . The constituent morphological-type stellar mass functions are well sampled above our lower stellar mass limit, excepting the faint little blue spheroid population of galaxies. We find approximately 71+3−4 71−4+3 per cent of the stellar mass in the local Universe is found within spheroid-dominated galaxies; ellipticals and S0-Sas. The remaining 29+4−3 29−3+4 per cent falls predominantly within late-type disc-dominated systems, Sab-Scds and Sd-Irrs. Adopting reasonable bulge-to-total ratios implies that approximately half the stellar mass today resides in spheroidal structures, and half in disc structures. Within this local sample, we find approximate stellar mass proportions for E : S0-Sa : Sab-Scd : Sd-Irr of 34 : 37 : 24 : 5.