RADIAL DENSITY STATISTICS OF THE GALAXY DISTRIBUTION AND THE LUMINOSITY FUNCTION

The supernova cosmology project aimed at obtaining model independent distances was a major step forward in the observational validation of cosmological models. However, when one deals with galaxy observations we are still unable to translate their redshift measurements into distance measures without assuming a cosmological model. This means that observationally determined number densities, like the galaxy luminosity function (LF), obtained with data derived from observed galaxy number counts of redshift surveys, still require the assumption of a cosmological model. The current astronomical practice in LF determination is to choose the comoving distance and carry out all calculations only with this choice. This implies analytical limitations as this methodology renders impossible the possibility of developing consistent tests between theoretical predictions of cosmological densities and their observations in its full extent, because to do so requires the use of various distance measures defined in cosmology in order to compare theory and observations. This project aims at developing methods able to overcome such limitations. By extracting the number counts from the LF results we are able to build different observational densities with all distance measures and test the underlying cosmological model by comparing with their respective theoretical predictions, all that being done in a relativistic number counting framework.