MIGHTEE-HI: The first MeerKAT HI mass function from an untargeted interferometric survey

We present the first measurement of the HI mass function (HIMF) using data from MeerKAT, based on 276 direct detections from the MIGHTEE Survey Early Science data covering a period of approximately a billion years ($0\le z\le 0.084$). This is the first HIMF measured using interferometric data over non-group or cluster field, i.e. a deep blank field. We constrain the parameters of the Schechter function which describes the HIMF with two different methods: $1\mathrm{/}{\mathrm{V}}_{\mathrm{m}\mathrm{a}\mathrm{x}}$ and Modified Maximum Likelihood (MML). We find a low-mass slope $\alpha =-1.29_{-0.26}^{+0.37}$, knee' mass $\log_{10}(M_{*}/{\rm M_{\odot}}) = 10.07^{+0.24}_{-0.24}$ and normalisation $\log_{10}(φ_{*}/\rm Mpc^{-3})=-2.34^{+0.32}_{-0.36}$ ($H_0 = 67.4$ kms$^{-1}$ Mpc$^{-1}$) for $1/\rm V_{\rm max}$ and $α=-1.44^{+0.13}_{-0.10}$, knee’ mass ${\log }_{10}(M_{\ast }\mathrm{/}{\mathrm{M}}_{\odot })=10.22_{-0.13}^{+0.10}$ and normalisation ${\log }_{10}({\phi }_{\ast }\mathrm{/}\mathrm{M}\mathrm{p}{\mathrm{c}}^{-3})=-2.52_{-0.14}^{+0.19}$ for MML. When using $1\mathrm{/}{\mathrm{V}}_{\mathrm{m}\mathrm{a}\mathrm{x}}$ we find both the low-mass slope and `knee’ mass to be consistent within $1\sigma$ with previous studies based on single-dish surveys. The cosmological mass density of HI is found to be slightly larger than previously reported: ${\mathrm{\Omega }}_{\mathrm{H}\mathrm{I}}=5.46_{-0.99}^{+0.94}\times {10}^{-4}{h}_{67.4}^{-1}$ from $1\mathrm{/}{\mathrm{V}}_{\mathrm{m}\mathrm{a}\mathrm{x}}$ and ${\mathrm{\Omega }}_{\mathrm{H}\mathrm{I}}=6.31_{-0.31}^{+0.31}\times {10}^{-4}{h}_{67.4}^{-1}$ from MML but consistent within the uncertainties. We find no evidence for evolution of the HIMF over the last billion years.