Journal article
The 1000 brightest HIPASS galaxies: The H I mass function and ω H I
MA Zwaan, L Staveley-Smith, BS Koribalski, PA Henning, VA Kilborn, SD Ryder, DG Barnes, R Bhathal, PJ Boyce, WJG De Blok, MJ Disney, MJ Drinkwater, RD Ekers, KC Freeman, BK Gibson, AJ Green, RF Haynes, H Jerjen, S Juraszek, MJ Kesteven Show all
Astronomical Journal | UNIV CHICAGO PRESS | Published : 2003
DOI: 10.1086/374944
Abstract
We present a new, accurate measurement of the H I mass function of galaxies from the HIPASS Bright Galaxy Catalog, a sample of 1000 galaxies with the highest H I peak flux densities in the southern (δ < 0°) hemisphere. This sample spans nearly 4 orders of magnitude in H I mass [log (MH I/ M⊙) + 2 log h75 = 6.8-10.6] and is the largest sample of H I-selected galaxies to date. We develop a bivariate maximum likelihood technique to measure the space density of galaxies and show that this is a robust method, insensitive to the effects of large-scale structure. The resulting H I mass function can be fitted satisfactorily with a Schechter function with faint-end slope α = -1.30. This slope is foun..
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