The Faint End of the Luminosity Function in the Field

Abstract

I review the current observational status of the faint end of the optical luminosity function of field galaxies at low redshift. There is growing evidence for an excess number of dwarf galaxies that is not well fit by a single Schechter function. These dwarf galaxies tend to be of late morphological and spectral type, blue in colour, of low surface brightness and currently undergoing significant star formation.

8 pages, 3 embedded ps figures. To appear in Proceedings of the XVIIIth Moriond astrophysics meeting "Dwarf Galaxies and Cosmology", eds. Thuan et al, Publ: Editions Frontiers