A large, deep 3 deg2 survey of H α, [O iii], and [O ii] emitters from LAGER: constraining luminosity functions

We present our measurements of the H α, [O iii], and [O ii] luminosity functions as part of the Lyman Alpha Galaxies at Epoch of Reionization (LAGER) survey using our samples of 1577 z = 0.47 H α-, 3933 z = 0.93 [O iii]-, and 5367 z = 1.59 [O ii]-selected emission line galaxies in a 3 deg 2 single, CTIO/Blanco DECam pointing of the COSMOS field. Our observations reach 5σ depths of 8.2 × 10 −18 erg s −1 cm −2 and comoving volumes of (1−7) × 10 5 Mpc 3 making our survey one of the deepest narrow-band surveys. We select our emission line galaxies via spectroscopic confirmation, photometric redshifts, and colour–colour selections. We measure the observed luminosity functions for each sample and find best fits of ϕ⋆=10−3.16+0.09−0.09 Mpc −3 and L⋆=1041.72+0.09−0.09 erg s −1 for H α, ϕ⋆=10−2.16+0.10−0.12 Mpc −3 and L⋆=1041.38+0.07−0.06 erg s −1 for [O iii], and ϕ⋆=10−1.97+0.07−0.07 Mpc −3 and L⋆=1041.66+0.03−0.03 erg s −1 for [O ii], with α fixed to −1.75, −1.6, and −1.3, respectively. An excess of bright >10 42 erg s −1 [O iii] emitters is observed and may be due to active galactic nucleus (AGN) contamination. Corrections for dust attenuation are applied assuming A Hα = 1 mag. We also design our own empirical rest-frame g − r calibration using SDSS DR12 data, test it against our z = 0.47 H α emitters with zCOSMOS 1D spectra, and calibrate it for (g − r) between −0.8 and 1.3 mag. Dust and AGN-corrected star formation rate densities (SFRDs) are measured as log 10 ρ SFR /(M ⊙ yr −1 Mpc −3 ) = −1.63 ± 0.04, −1.07 ± 0.06, and −0.90 ± 0.10 for H α, [O iii], and [O ii], respectively. We find our [O iii] and [O ii] samples fully trace cosmic star formation activity at their respective redshifts in comparison to multiwavelength SFRDs, while the H α sample traces ∼70 per cent of the total z = 0.47 SFRD.