# 1 The ESO Slice Project (ESP)

## 1 The ESO Slice Project (ESP)

The ESO Slice Project (ESP)   galaxy redshift survey is intermediate between shallow, wide angle samples and very deep, monodimensional pencil beams. It extends over a strip of $`\alpha \times \delta =22^o\times 1^o`$, plus a nearby area of $`5^o\times 1^o`$, five degrees west of the main strip, in the South Galactic Pole region. The right ascension limits are $`22^h30^m`$ and $`01^h20^m`$, at a mean declination of $`40^o`$ (1950); the covered solid angle is $`23`$ sq. deg. The limiting magnitude of the survey is $`b_J19.4`$, which optimizes the number of fibers of the spectrograph and corresponds to an effective depth of $`z0.16`$.   
We observed a total of 4044 spectra, corresponding to $`90\%`$ of the starting photometric sample, which contains 4487 objects. Among the observed spectra, 493 objects turned out to be stars ($`12\%`$ of the observed objects) and 208 were not useful to derive redshift determinations. Therefore we obtained a total of 3342 galaxies ($`+`$ a QSO) with reliable redshifts: about half of these galaxies present spectra with emission lines. The wedge diagram of the observed galaxies is shown in Fig.1.   
We paid particular attention to the redshift quality and we applied several checks to the data, using also multiple observations of $`200`$ galaxies and $`750`$ galaxies for which the redshift from both absorption and emission line is available  . Among the various analyses we applied to the ESP sample, here we summarize our results on the luminosity function .

## 2 The luminosity function and the mean galaxy density

Given its characteristics, the ESP sample can provide an accurate estimate of both the normalization and the faint end slope of the luminosity function in the local Universe. Our main results  are the following:   
1) Although a Schechter function is an acceptable representation of the luminosity function over the entire range of magnitudes ($`M_{b_J}12.4`$ $`+5\mathrm{log}h`$ ), our data suggest the presence of a steepening of the luminosity function for $`M_{b_J}17`$ $`+5\mathrm{log}h`$ (Fig.2a), well fitted by a power law with slope $`\beta 1.6`$.   
2) The steepening at the faint end of the luminosity function is almost completely due to galaxies with emission lines: in fact, dividing our galaxies into two samples, i.e. galaxies with and without emission lines, we find significant differences in their luminosity functions. In particular, galaxies with emission lines show a significantly steeper slope and a fainter $`M^{}`$ (Fig.3a). This trend depends on the \[OII\] equivalent width: when considering subsamples of galaxies at increasing thresholds of \[OII\] equivalent width, $`\alpha `$ becomes steeper and $`M^{}`$ fainter (Fig.3b).   
3) The amplitude and the $`\alpha `$ and $`M^{}`$ parameters of our luminosity function are in good agreement with those of the AUTOFIB redshift survey . Viceversa, our amplitude is a factor $`1.6`$ higher, at $`MM^{}`$, than that found for both the Stromlo-APM  and the Las Campanas  redshift surveys. Also the faint end slope of the luminosity function is significantly steeper for the ESP galaxies than that found in these two surveys (Fig.2b).   
4) The galaxy number density for $`M_{b_J}16`$ $`+5\mathrm{log}h`$ is well determined ($`\overline{n}=0.08\pm 0.015`$ h<sup>3</sup> Mpc<sup>-3</sup> ). Its estimate for $`M_{b_J}12.4`$ $`+5\mathrm{log}h`$ is more uncertain, ranging from $`\overline{n}=0.28`$ h<sup>3</sup> Mpc<sup>-3</sup> , in the case of a fit with a single Schechter function, to $`\overline{n}=0.54`$ h<sup>3</sup> Mpc<sup>-3</sup> , in the case of a fit with a Schechter function and a power law. The corresponding blue luminosity densities are $`\rho _{LUM}=(2.0,2.2,2.3)\times 10^8h`$ L Mpc<sup>-3</sup>, respectively.   
5) We find evidence for a local under–density, extending up to a comoving distance $`140`$ h<sup>-1</sup> Mpc (Fig.4a and 4b). When the radial density variations observed in our data are taken into account, our derived luminosity function reproduces very well the observed counts for $`b_J19.4`$, including the steeper than Euclidean slope for $`b_J17.0`$ (Fig.4c). If this under–density extends over a much larger solid angle than that covered by our survey, it could, at least partly, explain the low amplitude of the Stromlo-APM luminosity function.   
6) A similar explanation can not justify the significant difference in amplitude between the ESP and the LCRS luminosity functions, because the two samples cover essentially the same redshift range. One possibility, which has however to be verified, is that a non negligible number of galaxies are missing from the original CCD photometric catalog of the LCRS.