GAMA/WiggleZ: the 1.4 GHz radio luminosity functions of high- and low-excitation radio galaxies and their redshift evolution toz= 0.75

© 2016 The Authors. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Royal Astronomical Society. We present radio active galactic nuclei (AGN) luminosity functions over the redshift range 0.005 < z < 0.75. The sample from which the luminosity functions are constructed is an optical spectroscopic survey of radio galaxies, identified from matched Faint Images of the Radio Sky at Twenty-cm survey (FIRST) sources and Sloan Digital Sky Survey images. The radio AGN are separated into low-excitation radio galaxies (LERGs) and high-excitation radio galaxies (HERGs) using the optical spectra. We derive radio luminosity functions for LERGs and HERGs separately in the three redshift bins (0.005 < z < 0.3, 0.3 < z < 0.5 and 0.5 < z < 0.75). The radio luminosity functions can be well described by a double power law. Assuming this double power-law shape the LERG population displays little or no evolution over this redshift range evolving as ~(1 + z) 0.06+0.17 -0.18 assuming pure density evolution or ~(1 + z) 0.46+0.22 -0.24 assuming pure luminosity evolution. In contrast, the HERG population evolves more rapidly, best fitted by ~(1 + z) 2.93+0.46 -0.47 assuming a double power-law shape and pure density evolution. If a pure luminosity model is assumed, the best-fitting HERG evolution is parametrized by ~(1 + z) 7.41+0.79 -1.33 The characteristic break in the radio luminosity function occurs at a significantly higher power (~≥1 dex) for the HERG population in comparison to the LERGs. This is consistent with the two populations representing fundamentally different accretion modes