Shapley optical survey - I. Luminosity functions in the supercluster environment

We present the Shapley Optical Survey, a photometric study covering a similar to 2-deg(2) region of the Shapley supercluster core at z similar to 0.05 in two bands ( B and R). The galaxy sample is complete to B = 22.5 (> M* + 6, N-gal = 16 588) and R = 22.0 (> M* + 7, Ngal = 28 008). The galaxy luminosity function (LF) cannot be described by a single Schechter function due to dips apparent at B similar to 17.5 (M-B similar to- 19.3) and R similar to 17.0 (M-R similar to- 19.8) and the clear upturn in the counts for galaxies fainter than B and R similar to 18 mag. We find, instead, that the sum of a Gaussian and a Schechter function, for bright and faint galaxies, respectively, is a suitable representation of the data. We study the effects of the environment on the photometric properties of galaxies, deriving the galaxy LFs in three regions selected according to the local galaxy density, and find a marked luminosity segregation, in the sense that the LF faint end is different at more than 3 sigma confidence level in regions with different densities. In addition, the LFs of red and blue galaxy populations show very different behaviours: while red sequence counts are very similar to those obtained for the global galaxy population, the blue galaxy LFs are well described by a single Schechter function and do not vary with the density. Such large environmentally dependent deviations from a single Schechter function are difficult to produce solely within galaxy merging or suffocation scenarios. Instead the data support the idea that mechanisms related to the cluster environment, such as galaxy harassment or ram-pressure stripping, shape the galaxy LFs by terminating star formation and producing mass-loss in galaxies at similar to M-* + 2, a magnitude range where blue late-type spirals used to dominate cluster populations, but are now absent.