Mid-Infrared Luminosity Function of Local Galaxies in the North Ecliptic Pole Region

We present observational estimation of the infrared (IR) luminosity function (LF) of local (z < 0.3) star-forming (SF) galaxies derived from the AKARI NEP-Wide samples. We made an analysis of the NEP-Wide data with optical spectroscopic information allowing an accurate determination of luminosity function. Spectroscopic redshifts for about 1650 objects were obtained with MMT/Hectospec and WIYN/Hydra, and the median redshifts is about 0.22. To measure the contribution of SF galaxies to the luminosity function, we excluded AGN sample by comparing their SEDs with various model template. Spectroscopic redshifts and the AKARI's continuous filter coverage in the mid-IR (MIR) wavelength (2 ~ 25 micron) enable us to avoid large uncertainties from the mid-IR SED of galaxies and corresponding k-corrections. The 8-micron luminosity function shows a good agreement with the previous works in the bright-end, whereas it seems not easy to constrain the faint-end slope. The comparison with the results of the NEP-Deep data (Goto et al. 2010) suggests the luminosity evolution to the higher redshifts, which is consistent with the down-sizing evolutionary pattern of galaxies.