M Dwarfs from Hubble Space Telescope Star Counts. V. The I-band Luminosity Function

We derive the disk I-band luminosity function from the Zheng et al. sample of ~1400 disk M dwarfs observed with the Hubble Space Telescope. We adopt a Galactic-height-dependent color-magnitude relation to account for the metallicity gradient above the Galactic plane. The resultant I-band luminosity function peaks at M_I~9.5 and drops sharply toward M_I~10.5.