Very Small Scale Clustering and Merger Rate of Luminous Red Galaxies

By M. Masjedi, David W. Hogg, R. Cool, Daniel J. Eisenstein, M. Blanton, Idit Zehavi, A. Berlind, Eric F. Bell, D. Schneider, Michael S. Warren and 1 more. 2005

149 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We present the small-scale (0.01 Mpc < r < 8 h-1 Mpc) projected correlation function wp(rp) and real-space correlation function ξ(r) of 24,520 luminous early-type galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Luminous Red Galaxy (LRG) sample (0.16 < z < 0.36). "Fiber collision" incompleteness of the SDSS spectroscopic sample at scales smaller than 55'' prevents measurements of the correlation function for LRGs on scales smaller than ~0.3 Mpc by the usual methods. In this work, we cross-correlate the spectroscopic sample with the imaging sample, with a weighting scheme to account for the collisions, extensively tested against mock catalogs. We correct for photometric biases in the SDSS imaging of close galaxy pairs. We find that the correlation function ξ(r) is surprisingly close to a r-2 power law over more than 4 orders of magnitude in separation r. This result is too steep at small scales to be explained in current versions of the halo model for galaxy clustering. We infer an LRG-LRG merger rate of ≲0.6 × 104 Gyr-1 Gpc-3 for this sample. This result suggests that the LRG-LRG mergers are not the main mode of mass growth for LRGs at z < 0.36.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/0b011f70022b70069356329df800421704d81a87

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Citations in the corpus

The Redshift Evolution of Wet, Dry, and Mixed Galaxy Mergers from Close Galaxy Pairs in the DEEP2 Galaxy Redshift Survey (2008, background): “While recently there have been several efforts attempting to estimate the merger rates of certain categories, they were mainly focused on red galaxies (van Dokkum 2005; Bell et al. 2006a; Masjedi et al. 2006; Lotz et al. 2008; Masjedi, Hogg, & Blanton 2007).”
Cosmological constraints from the clustering of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey DR7 luminous red galaxies (vol 404, pg 60, 2010) (2009, methodology): “Several authors have studied this relation using the small- and intermediate-scale clustering in the SDSS LRG sample (Zehavi et al. 2005a; Masjedi et al. 2006; Kulkarni et al. 2007; Wake et al. 2008; Zheng et al. 2009; Reid & Spergel 2009) and galaxy–galaxy lensing (Mandelbaum et al. 2006).”
HALO OCCUPATION DISTRIBUTION MODELING OF CLUSTERING OF LUMINOUS RED GALAXIES (2008, background): “Because of the fiber collision effect, the smallest scale that can be probed by the spectroscopic LRG samples is about 0.4 h−1 Mpc. Masjedi et al. (2006) extend the measurements of the two-point correlation function for the Mg < −21.2 sample down to a scale of ∼0.015 h−1 Mpc by cross-correlating the”
A Cosmological Framework for the Co-Evolution of Quasars, Supermassive Black Holes, and Elliptical Galaxies. I. Galaxy Mergers and Quasar Activity (2007, result): “This can be thought of as either a capture process from halo/ subhalo orbits or a global inflow rate from dynamical friction and gravitational motions; the results are the same, modulo the absolute merger rate normalization (Binney&Tremaine 1987;Masjedi et al. 2006).”
What Aspects of Galaxy Environment Matter? (2006, background): “For example, in rich clusters the colors of the smaller galaxies may be contaminated by overlapping larger galaxies (Masjedi et al. 2006).”
The Evolving Luminosity Function of Red Galaxies (2006, background): “At low redshift, measured rates of red galaxy stellar mass growth via mergers span from’1% per Gyr (Masjedi et al. 2006) to’10% per Gyr (van Dokkum 2005).”
The Hierarchical Build-Up of Massive Galaxies and the Intracluster Light since z = 1 (2007, background): “In addition to number counts, estimates of the merger rate of massive galaxies can in principle constrain their assembly history, although current observations fail to present a consistent picture (e.g., van Dokkum 2005; Bell et al. 2006; Masjedi et al. 2006).”
Cosmological Constraints from a Combination of Galaxy Clustering and Lensing -- III. Application to SDSS Data (2012, result): “Interestingly, an opposite result has been obtained for luminous red galaxies (e.g., Masjedi et al. 2006; Watson et al. 2010, 2012; Tal, Wake & van Dokkum 2012).”
THE GREATER IMPACT OF MERGERS ON THE GROWTH OF MASSIVE GALAXIES: IMPLICATIONS FOR MASS ASSEMBLY AND EVOLUTION SINCE z ≃ 1 (2009, unknown): “0.3 (e.g., Xu et al. 2004; De Propris et al. 2005; Masjedi et al. 2006; Patton & Atfield 2008).”
THE SEVENTH DATA RELEASE OF THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY (2008, methodology): “In the DR6 paper, this effect was quantified by adding simulated galaxies to the SDSS images using a code described in Masjedi et al. (2006).”
DISSIPATION AND EXTRA LIGHT IN GALACTIC NUCLEI. IV. EVOLUTION IN THE SCALING RELATIONS OF SPHEROIDS (2008, background): “…the elliptical population at masses. a fewL∗, the vast majority of which still live in less extreme environments (e.g. Blanton et al. 2005; Wang et al. 2006; Masjedi et al. 2006) and are expected to have experienced a small number (∼ a couple) of major re-mergers since redshiftsz ∼ 2− 4.”
Gravitational waves from resolvable massive black hole binary systems and observations with Pulsar Timing Arrays (2008, background): “At such small redshifts the impact of merger activity on galaxy/MBH number density is negligible (of order of 0.1/Gyr, e.g., Wake et al. 2008; White et al. 2007; Masjedi et al. 2006; Bell et al. 2006); therefore, we assume nG to be constant.”
GALAXY CLUSTERING IN THE COMPLETED SDSS REDSHIFT SURVEY: THE DEPENDENCE ON COLOR AND LUMINOSITY (2010, methodology): “It is, in fact, possible to correct for fiber collisions down to scales as small as 0.01 h−1 Mpc using the ratio of small-angle pairs in the spectroscopic and photometric catalogs (Masjedi et al. 2006; Li et al. 2006; Li & White 2009), but we have not implemented this technique here.”
Ongoing assembly of massive galaxies by major merging in large groups and clusters from the SDSS (2007, methodology): “Masjedi et al. (2006) found a strict upper limit to the LRG-LRG rate of only0.”
THE MAJOR AND MINOR GALAXY MERGER RATES AT z < 1.5 (2011, methodology): “Finally, two-point angular correlation studies of large samples of galaxies have also been used to determine the statistical excess of galaxies within a given dark matter halo (e.g. Masjedi et al. 2006, Robaina et al. 2010).”
Galaxy pairs in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey – II. The effect of environment on interactions (2010, background): “For example, Masjedi et al. (2006) found a dramatic increase in flux in object pairs at separations of< 3 arcsecs, but extending out as far as 20 arcseconds (see alsoMcIntosh et al. 2008).”
GALAXY PAIRS IN THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY. I. STAR FORMATION, ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEUS FRACTION, AND THE LUMINOSITY/MASS–METALLICITY RELATION (2008, background): “The merging timescale for these galaxies is ∼250–500 Myr (e.g., Patton et al. 2000; Masjedi et al. 2006).”