Abstract
We present measurements of the higher order clustering of red and blue galaxies as a function of scale and luminosity made from the two-degree field galaxy redshift survey (2dFGRS). We use a counts-in-cells analysis to estimate the volume-averaged correlation functions, as a function of scale up to the order of p = 5, and also the reduced void probability function. Hierarchical amplitudes are constructed using the estimates of the correlation functions:. We find that (i) red galaxies display stronger clustering than blue galaxies at all orders measured; (ii) red galaxies show values of Sp that are strongly dependent on luminosity whereas blue galaxies show no segregation in Sp within the errors; this is remarkable given the segregation in the variance; (iii) the linear relative bias shows the opposite trend to the hierarchical amplitudes, with little segregation for the red sequence and some segregation for the blue; (iv) faint red galaxies deviate significantly from the 'universal' negative binomial reduced void probabilities followed by all other galaxy populations. Our results show that the characteristic colour of a galaxy population reveals a unique signature in its spatial distribution. Such signatures will hopefully further elucidate the physics responsible for shaping the cosmological evolution of galaxies. © 2007 RAS.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 1562-1570 |
Journal | Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society |
Volume | 379 |
Issue number | 4 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 1 Aug 2007 |
Keywords
- Cosmology: theory
- Galaxies: statistics
- Large-scale structure of Universe