The GALEX-VVDS measurement of the evolution of the far-ultraviolet luminosity density and the cosmic star formation rate

In a companion Letter (Arnouts et al.) we present new measurements of the galaxy luminosity function at 1500 Angstrom out to z similar to 1 using Galaxy Evolution Explorer VIMOS-VLT Deep Survey observations (1039 galaxies with NUV less than or equal to 24.5 and z > 0.2) and at higher z using existing data sets. In this Letter we use the same sample to study evolution of the FUV luminosity density rho(1500). We detect evolution consistent with a (1+z)(2.5+/-0.7) rise to z similar to 1 and (1 + z)(0.5+/-0.4) for z > 1. The luminosity density from the most UV-luminous galaxies (UVLGs) is undergoing dramatic evolution (30 times) between 0 < z < 1. UVLGs are responsible for a significant fraction (>25%) of the total far-ultraviolet luminosity density at z similar to 1. We measure dust attenuation and star formation rates of our sample galaxies and determine the star formation rate density ((rho) over dot(*)) as a function of redshift, both uncorrected and corrected for dust. We find good agreement with other measures of (rho) over dot(*) in the rest ultraviolet and Halpha given the still significant uncertainties in the attenuation correction.