A Wide-Field [ITAL]K[/ITAL]-band Survey: The Luminosity Function of Galaxies

We present the first determination of the near-infrared K-band luminosity function of field galaxies from a wide field K-selected redshift survey. The best fit Schechter function parameters are $M^* = -23.12 +5log(h)$, $\alpha = -0.91$, and $\phi^* = 1.66 \times 10^{-2} h^3 ~ Mpc^{-3}$. We estimate that systematics are no more than 0.1 mag in $M^*$ and 0.1 in $\alpha$, which is comparable to the statistical errors on this measurement.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ Letters. 12 pages in LaTex, including 3 postscript figures, requires aaspp4.st