The high mass end of the stellar mass function: Dependence on stellar
  population models and agreement between fits to the light profile
  We quantify the systematic effects on the stellar mass function which arise
from assumptions about the stellar population, as well as how one fits the
light profiles of the most luminous galaxies at z ~ 0.1. When comparing results
from the literature, we are careful to separate out these effects. Our analysis
shows that while systematics in the estimated comoving number density which
arise from different treatments of the stellar population remain of order < 0.5
dex, systematics in photometry are now about 0.1 dex, despite recent claims in
the literature. Compared to these more recent analyses, previous work based on
Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) pipeline photometry leads to underestimates of
rho_*(> M_*) by factors of 3-10 in the mass range 10^11 - 10^11.6 M_Sun, but up
to a factor of 100 at higher stellar masses. This impacts studies which match
massive galaxies to dark matter halos. Although systematics which arise from
different treatments of the stellar population remain of order < 0.5 dex, our
finding that systematics in photometry now amount to only about 0.1 dex in the
stellar mass density is a significant improvement with respect to a decade ago.
Our results highlight the importance of using the same stellar population and
photometric models whenever low and high redshift samples are compared.
