On the evolution of clustering of 24-μm-selected galaxies

This paper investigates the clustering properties of a complete sample of 1041 24-mu m-selected sources brighter than F24(mu m)=400 mu Jy in the overlapping region between the Spitzer Wide-Area Infrared Extragalactic (SWIRE) and UKIRT Infrared Deep Sky Survey (UKIDSS) Ultra Deep Survey (UDS) surveys. With the help of photometric redshift determinations we have concentrated on the two interval ranges z = [0.6-1.2] (low-z sample) and z >= 1.6 (high-z sample) as it is in these regions were we expect the mid-infrared (IR) population to be dominated by intense dust-enshrouded activity such as star formation and black hole accretion. Investigations of the angular correlation function produce an amplitude A similar to 0.010 for the high-z sample and A similar to 0.0055 for the low-zone. The corresponding correlation lengths are r(0) = 15.9(-3.4)(+2.9) and 8.5(-1.8)(+1.5) MPC, showing that the high-z population is more strongly clustered. Comparisons with physical models for the formation and evolution of large-scale structure reveal that the high-z sources are exclusively associated with very massive (M greater than or similar to 10(13) M-circle dot) haloes, comparable to those which locally host groups-to-clusters of galaxies and are very common within such (rare) structures. Conversely, lower z galaxies are found to reside in smaller haloes (M-min similar to 10(12) M-circle dot) and to be very rare in such systems. On the other hand, mid-IR photometry shows that the low-z and high-z samples include similar objects and probe a similar mixture of active galactic nucleus (AGN) and star-forming galaxies. While recent studies have determined a strong evolution of the 24-mu m luminosity function between z similar to 2 and 0, they cannot provide information on the physical nature of such an evolution. Our clustering results instead indicate that this is due to the presence of different populations of objects inhabiting different structures, as active systems at z less than or similar to 1.5 are found to be exclusively associated with low-mass galaxies, while very massive sources appear to have concluded their active phase before this epoch. Finally, we note that the small-scale clustering data seem to require steep (p alpha r(-3)) profiles for the distribution of galaxies within their haloes. This is suggestive of close encounters and/or mergers which could strongly favour both AGN and star formation activity.