Luminosity volume test and the local hypothesis of quasars

Abstract

It is shown that the luminosity-volume test for optically selected objects has an in-built bias towards increasing the average value of V/Vm above the Euclidean value of 1/2. A more satisfactory bias-free statistic is suggested in the form of In (V/Vm), The result of applying the test to a sample from the Bright Quasar Survey (BQS) shows that the local hypothesis of quasars is consistent with the data.