The clustering of colour-selected galaxies

We present measurements of the angular correlation function of galaxies selected from a B-J similar to 23.5 multicolour survey of two 5 degrees x 5 degrees fields located at high galactic latitudes. The galaxy catalogue of similar to 4 x 10(5) galaxies is comparable in size to catalogues used to determine the galaxy correlation function at low redshift. Measurements of the z similar to 0.4 correlation function at large angular scales show no evidence for a break from a power law, although our results are not inconsistent with a break at greater than or similar to 15 h(-1) Mpc. Despite the large fields-of-view, there are large discrepancies between the measurements of the correlation function in each field, possibly caused by dwarf galaxies within z similar to 0.11 clusters near the South Galactic Pole. Colour selection is used to study the clustering of galaxies from z similar to 0 to z similar to 0.4. The galaxy correlation function is found to depend strongly on colour with red galaxies more strongly clustered than blue galaxies by a factor of greater than or similar to 5 at small scales. The slope of the correlation function is also found to vary with colour, with gamma similar to 1.8 for red galaxies and gamma similar to 1.5 for blue galaxies. The clustering of red galaxies is consistently strong over the entire magnitude range studied, although there are large variations between the two fields. The clustering of blue galaxies is extremely weak over the observed magnitude range, with clustering consistent with r(0) similar to 2 h(-1) Mpc. This is weaker than the clustering of late-type galaxies in the local Universe, and suggests that galaxy clustering is more strongly correlated with colour than morphology. This may also be the first detection of a substantial low-redshift galaxy population with clustering properties similar to faint blue galaxies.