High redshift galaxies in the ALHAMBRA survey. II. Strengthening the evidence of bright-end excess in UV luminosity functions at 2.5 <= z<= 4.5 by PDF analysis

Context. Knowing the exact shape of the ultraviolet (UV) luminosity function (LF) of high-redshift galaxies is important to understand the star formation history of the early Universe. However, the uncertainties, especially at the faint and bright ends of the LFs, remain significant. Aims. In this paper, we study the UV LF of redshift z = 2:5 4.5 galaxies in 2.38 deg of ALHAMBRA data with I ≤ 24. Thanks to the large area covered by ALHAMBRA, we particularly constrain the bright end of the LF. We also calculate the cosmic variance and the corresponding bias values for our sample and derive their host dark matter halo masses. Methods.We have used a novel methodology based on redshift and magn…