The COMBO-17 Survey: Evolution of the Galaxy Luminosity Function from 25,000 Galaxies with 0.2<z<1.2

We present a detailed empirical assessment of how the galaxy luminosity function and stellar luminosity density evolves over the last half of the universes age (0.2<z<1.2) for galaxies of different spectral energy distributions (SED). The results are based on ~25,000 galaxies (R<24) with redshift measurements (sigma_z~0.03) and SEDs across 350..930 nm, derived from medium-band photometry in 17 filters, observed as part of the COMBO-17 survey (``Classifying Objects by Medium-Band Observations in 17 Filters) over three disjoint fields with a total area of 0.78 square degrees. Luminosity functions (LF), binned in redshift and SED-type, are presented in the restframe passbands of the SDSS r-band, the Johnson B-band and a synthetic UV continuum band at 280 nm. We find that the luminosity function depends strongly on SED-type at all redshifts covered. The shape of the LF, i.e. the faint-end power-law slope, does depend on SED type, but not on redshift. However, the redshift evolution of the characteristic luminosity M* and density phi* depends strongly on SED-type: (1) Early-type galaxies, defined as redder than a present-day reference Sa spectrum, become drastically more abundant towards low redshift, by a factor of 10 in the number density phi* from z=1.1 to now, and by a factor of 4 in their contribution to the co-moving r-band luminosity density, j_r. (2) Galaxies resembling present-day Sa- to Sbc-colours show a co-moving number density and contribution to j_r that does not vary much with redshift. (3) Galaxies with blue spectra reflecting strong star formation decrease towards low redshift both in luminosity and density, and by a factor of 4 in their j_r contribution. (abridged)