The GALEX-VVDS Measurement of the Evolution of the Far-Ultraviolet Luminosity Density and the Cosmic Star Formation Rate

In a companion Letter (Arnouts et al.) we present new measurements of the galaxy luminosity function at 1500 Å out to z ~ 1 using Galaxy Evolution Explorer VIMOS-VLT Deep Survey observations (1039 galaxies with NUV ≤ 24.5 and z > 0.2) and at higher z using existing data sets. In this Letter we use the same sample to study evolution of the FUV luminosity density ρ1500. We detect evolution consistent with a (1 + z)2.5±0.7 rise to z ~ 1 and (1 + z)0.5±0.4 for z > 1. The luminosity density from the most UV-luminous galaxies (UVLGs) is undergoing dramatic evolution (30 times) between 0 < z < 1. UVLGs are responsible for a significant fraction (>25%) of the total far-ultraviolet luminosity density at z ~ 1. We measure dust attenuation and star formation rates of our sample galaxies and determine the star formation rate density (⋆) as a function of redshift, both uncorrected and corrected for dust. We find good agreement with other measures of ⋆ in the rest ultraviolet and Hα given the still significant uncertainties in the attenuation correction.