Distribution of Maximal Luminosity of Galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

Extreme value statistics (EVS) is applied to the pixelized distribution of galaxy luminosities in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). We analyze the DR8 Main Galaxy Sample (MGS) as well as the Luminous Red Galaxy Sample (LRGS). A non-parametric comparison of the EVS of the luminosities with the Fisher-Tippett-Gumbel distribution (limit distribution for independent variables distributed by the Press-Schechter law) indicates a good agreement provided uncertainties arising both from the finite size of the samples and from the sample size distribution are accounted for. This effectively rules out the possibility of having a finite maximum cutoff luminosity.