Loveday, JonChristodoulou, LNorberg, PPeacock, John ABaldry, Ivan KBland-Hawthorn, JossBrown, M J IColless, MatthewDriver, SimonHolwerda, Benne WillemHopkins, Andrew M.2021-11-012021-11-010035-8711http://hdl.handle.net/1885/251311The galaxy pairwise velocity dispersion (PVD) can provide important tests of non-standard gravity and galaxy formation models. We describe measurements of the PVD of galaxies in the Galaxy and Mass Assembly (GAMA) survey as a function of projected separation and galaxy luminosity. Due to the faint magnitude limit (r < 19.8) and highly complete spectroscopic sampling of the GAMA survey, we are able to reliably measure the PVD to smaller scales (r⊥ = 0.01 h -1 Mpc) than previous work. The measured PVD at projected separations r⊥ < 1 h -1 Mpc increases near monotonically with increasing luminosity from σ12 ≈ 200 km s-1 at Mr = -17 mag to σ12 ≈ 600 km s-1 at Mr ≈ -22 mag. Analysis of the Gonzalez-Perez et al. (2014) GALFORM semi-analytic model yields no such trend of PVD with luminosity: the model overpredicts the PVD for faint galaxies. This is most likely a result of the model placing too many low-luminosity galaxies in massive haloes.JL acknowledges support from the Science and Technology Facilities Council (grant number ST/I000976/1). PN acknowledges the support of the Royal Society through the award of a University Research Fellowship, the European Research Council, through receipt of a Starting Grant (DEGAS-259586) and the Science and Technology Facilities Council (ST/L00075X/1)application/pdfen-AU© 2017 The Author(s)201810.1093/mnras/stx29712020-11-23