Galaxy and mass assembly (GAMA): colour- and luminosity-dependent clustering from calibrated photometric redshifts

Christodoulou, L.; Eminian, C.; Loveday, J.; Norberg, P.; Baldry, I.K.; Hurley, P.D.; Driver, S.P.; Bamford, S.P.; Hopkins, A.M.; Liske, J.; Peacock, J.A.; Bland-Hawthorn, J.; Brough, S.; Cameron, E.; Conselice, C.J.; Croom, S.M.; Frenk, C.S.; Gunawardhana, M.; Jones, D.H.; Kelvin, L.S.; Kuijken, K.; Nichol, R.C.; Parkinson, H.; Pimbblet, K.A.; Popescu, C.C.; Prescott, M.; Robotham, A.S.G.; Sharp, R.G.; Sutherland, W.J.; Taylor, E.N.; Thomas, D.; Tuffs, R.J.; van Kampen, E.; Wijesinghe, D.

doi:10.1111/j.1365-2966.2012.21434.x

Galaxy and mass assembly (GAMA): colour- and luminosity-dependent clustering from calibrated photometric redshifts

Christodoulou, L.; Eminian, C.; Loveday, J.; Norberg, P.; Baldry, I.K.; Hurley, P.D.; Driver, S.P.; Bamford, S.P.; Hopkins, A.M.; Liske, J.; Peacock, J.A.; Bland-Hawthorn, J.; Brough, S.; Cameron, E.; Conselice, C.J.; Croom, S.M.; Frenk, C.S.; Gunawardhana, M.; Jones, D.H.; Kelvin, L.S.; Kuijken, K.; Nichol, R.C.; Parkinson, H.; Pimbblet, K.A.; Popescu, C.C.; Prescott, M.; Robotham, A.S.G.; Sharp, R.G.; Sutherland, W.J.; Taylor, E.N.; Thomas, D.; Tuffs, R.J.; van Kampen, E.; Wijesinghe, D.

Authors

L. Christodoulou

C. Eminian

J. Loveday

Professor Peder Norberg peder.norberg@durham.ac.uk
Professor

I.K. Baldry

P.D. Hurley

S.P. Driver

S.P. Bamford

A.M. Hopkins

J. Liske

J.A. Peacock

J. Bland-Hawthorn

S. Brough

E. Cameron

C.J. Conselice

S.M. Croom

Professor Carlos Frenk c.s.frenk@durham.ac.uk
Professor

M. Gunawardhana

D.H. Jones

L.S. Kelvin

K. Kuijken

R.C. Nichol

H. Parkinson

K.A. Pimbblet

C.C. Popescu

M. Prescott

A.S.G. Robotham

R.G. Sharp

W.J. Sutherland

E.N. Taylor

D. Thomas

R.J. Tuffs

E. van Kampen

D. Wijesinghe

Abstract

We measure the two-point angular correlation function of a sample of 4289 223 galaxies with r < 19.4 mag from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) as a function of photometric redshift, absolute magnitude and colour down to Mr − 5 log h = −14 mag. Photometric redshifts are estimated from ugriz model magnitudes and two Petrosian radii using the artificial neural network package ANNz, taking advantage of the Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA) spectroscopic sample as our training set. These photometric redshifts are then used to determine absolute magnitudes and colours. For all our samples, we estimate the underlying redshift and absolute magnitude distributions using Monte Carlo resampling. These redshift distributions are used in Limber's equation to obtain spatial correlation function parameters from power-law fits to the angular correlation function. We confirm an increase in clustering strength for sub-L* red galaxies compared with ∼L* red galaxies at small scales in all redshift bins, whereas for the blue population the correlation length is almost independent of luminosity for ∼L* galaxies and fainter. A linear relation between relative bias and log luminosity is found to hold down to luminosities L ∼ 0.03L*. We find that the redshift dependence of the bias of the L* population can be described by the passive evolution model of Tegmark & Peebles. A visual inspection of a random sample from our r < 19.4 sample of SDSS galaxies reveals that about 10 per cent are spurious, with a higher contamination rate towards very faint absolute magnitudes due to over-deblended nearby galaxies. We correct for this contamination in our clustering analysis.

Citation

Christodoulou, L., Eminian, C., Loveday, J., Norberg, P., Baldry, I., Hurley, P., …Wijesinghe, D. (2012). Galaxy and mass assembly (GAMA): colour- and luminosity-dependent clustering from calibrated photometric redshifts. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 425(2), 1527-1548. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2966.2012.21434.x

Journal Article Type	Article
Publication Date	Sep 11, 2012
Deposit Date	Apr 25, 2013
Publicly Available Date	Aug 21, 2014
Journal	Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Print ISSN	0035-8711
Electronic ISSN	1365-2966
Publisher	Royal Astronomical Society
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	425
Issue	2
Pages	1527-1548
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2966.2012.21434.x
Keywords	Techniques: photometric, Surveys, Galaxies: distances and redshifts, Galaxies: statistics, Large-scale structure of Universe.

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This article has been accepted for publication in Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society © 2012 The Authors Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Royal Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.