Erratum: The star formation rate distribution function of the local Universe

It has been brought to our attention that the star formation rate distribution function (SFDF) given in Bothwell et al. (2011) is quoted with incorrect parameters. We have determined the source of this error to be an incorrect value of the normalization, Φ*, which was given as being an order of magnitude too low. As such, integrating a Schechter function described by our quoted parameters does not produce the value for the total z = 0 star formation rate density given in Table 1 (which remains unchanged).

The correct parameters are [Φ* = 0.0015 Mpc⁻³, ψ* = 9.0 ± 0.3 M_⊙ yr⁻¹, α = −1.48 ± 0.07] for the ‘least-squares’ fit (shown as a black line in Fig. 1) and [Φ* = 0.0016 Mpc⁻³, ψ* = 9.2 ± 0.3 M_⊙ yr⁻¹, α = −1.51 ± 0.07] for the maximum likelihood fit (shown as a blue line in Fig. 1). The corrected SFDF is shown in Fig. 1.

Figure 1.

The SFDF for the resultant combined sample as described in Bothwell et al. (2011). This figure replaces fig. 6 in that work. The green line is the log-normal SFDF taken from Martin et al. (2005).

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We are grateful to Mark Dijkstra and George Rieke for bringing this error to our attention.

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