z~1 Lya Emitters I. The Luminosity Function
  We construct a flux-limited sample of 135 candidate z~1 Lya emitters (LAEs)
from Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX) grism data using a new data cube search
method. These LAEs have luminosities comparable to those at high redshifts and
lie within a 7 Gyr gap present in existing LAE samples. We use archival and
newly obtained optical spectra to verify the UV redshifts of these LAEs. We use
the combination of the GALEX UV spectra, optical spectra, and X-ray imaging
data to estimate the active galactic nucleus (AGN) fraction and its dependence
on Lya luminosity. We remove the AGNs and compute the luminosity function (LF)
from 60 z~1 LAE galaxies. We find that the best fit LF implies a luminosity
density increase by a factor of ~1.5 from z~0.3 to z~1 and ~20 from z~1 to z~2.
We find a z~1 volumetric Lya escape fraction of 0.7+/-0.4%.
