TITLE:
Standard and Truncated Luminosity Functions for Stars in the Gaia Era
AUTHORS:
Lorenzo Zaninetti
KEYWORDS:
Fundamental Parameters Stars, Luminosity Function, Mass Function
JOURNAL NAME:
International Journal of Astronomy and Astrophysics,
Vol.7 No.4,
December
6,
2017
ABSTRACT: The luminosity function (LF) for stars is here fitted by a Schechter function and by a Gamma probability density function. The dependence of the number of stars on the distance, both in the low and high luminosity regions, requires the inclusion of a lower and upper boundary in the Schechter and Gamma LFs. Three astrophysical applications for stars are provided: deduction of the parameters at low distances, behavior of the average absolute magnitude with distance, and the location of the photometric maximum as a function of the selected flux. The use of the truncated LFs allows modeling the Malmquist bias.