ELG luminosity functions in the nearby Universe

We studied the contribution to the LF of different types of ELGs classified using two methods: (i) the value of the specific star formation rate (sSFR), and (ii) the line ratios on the Baldwin-Phillips-Terlevich (BPT) and the WHAN (i.e., H{alpha} equivalent width versus the [NII]/H{alpha} line ratio) diagrams. The ELGs in our sample are mostly star forming, with 84 per cent having sSFR>10^-11^yr^-1^. When classifying ELGs using the BPT+WHAN diagrams, we find that 63.3 per cent are star forming, only 0.03 are passively evolving, and 1.3 have nuclear activity (Seyfert).

The rest are low-ionization narrow emission-line regions (LINERs) and composite ELGs. We found that a Saunders function is the most appropriate to describe all of the emission-line LFs, both observed and dust-extinction-corrected. They are dominated by star-forming regions, except for the bright end of the [OIII] and [NII] LFs (i.e. L[NII]>10^42^erg/s, L[OIII]>10^43^erg/s), where the contribution of Seyfert galaxies is not negligible.