Doing?

I am comparing how the results from comparing different methods of galaxy growth result in different results

How am I doing this?

Zfourge

This takes a number of deep observations, bins them by redshift and constructs the SMF for each redshift
This raw data is found in helpers.data.smf
This data can also be fit to a schechter function and is done by the Zfourge people
The single and double schechter params are in helpers.data.schechter
If you want to see this data, run growth_zfourge.py
That will give graphs of both the raw data and the fitted data

Paramaterization

This z fourge data is nice, but has some irregularities.
We would like to paramaterize the schechter function to get rid of these.
Joel does this in his paper (saved as paramaterization)
This is a paramaterization of the schechter functions based on Z
- a_1 and a_2 are constants (What are these?)
- Phi_1 and phi_2 vary with z, as does M^* and M_dot
Using this paramaterization with the Zfourge data, we have a nice set of data for far away things

Local Galaxy Stuff

This data is shows the growth of local galaxies over time.
Comes in the form of final mass (+/- error) and percentage of that mass at various times (+/- error)

Errors

At time t for galaxy x, Mass = x_m +/- x_e
For a number of gala

Details

What is a schechter function?

See Virginia astro class on them
Paul Schechter (1974) looked at the mass distribution of galaxies. Found that this function fit well. Why? Who knows

Code?

Main

zfourge_smf

Plots a variety of graphs showing the SMF based on
1. The raw Zfourge data
2. The schechter funcs derived from the Zfourge data
3. The paramaterized Schechter funcs from Joel

mass_const_num_den

Plots a single graph showing the change in mass at constant number density of time
Uses the paramaterization
Uses various start masses, and tracks the mass at the number density over time