Clustering Segregation with Ultraviolet Luminosity in Lyman Break Galaxies at z~3 and Its Implications

By M. Giavalisco, Mark Dickinson. 2000

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We report on the clustering properties of Lyman break galaxies (LBGs) at z ~ 3. The correlation length of flux-limited samples of LBGs depends on their rest-frame ultraviolet (UV) luminosity at λ ~ 1700 Å, with fainter galaxies being less strongly clustered in space. We have used three samples with progressively fainter flux limits: two extracted from our ground-based survey and one from the Hubble Deep Fields (both North and South). The correlation length decreases by a factor of ≈3 over the range of limiting magnitudes that we have probed, namely, 25 ≲ ℛ ≲ 27, suggesting that samples with a fainter UV luminosity limit include galaxies with smaller mass. We have compared the observed scaling properties of the clustering strength with those predicted for cold dark matter (CDM) halos and found that (1) the clustering strength of LBGs follows, within the errors, the same scaling law with the volume density as the halos; and (2) the scaling law predicted for the galaxies using the halo mass spectrum and a number of models for the relationship that maps the halos' mass into the galaxies' UV luminosity depends only on how tightly mass and UV luminosity correlate but is otherwise insensitive to the details of the models. We interpret these results as additional evidence that the strong spatial clustering of LBGs is due to galaxy biasing, supporting the theory of biased galaxy formation and gravitational instability as the primary physical mechanism for the formation of structure. We have also fitted models of the mass-UV luminosity relationship to the data to reproduce simultaneously from the CDM halo mass spectrum the dependence of the correlation length with the UV luminosity and the luminosity function. We have found that (1) a scale invariant relationship between mass and UV luminosity (e.g., a power law) is not supported by the observations, suggesting that the properties of star formation of galaxies change along the mass spectrum of the observed LBGs; (2) the scatter of the UV luminosity of LBGs of given mass must be relatively small for massive LBGs, suggesting that the mass is an important parameter in regulating the activity of star formation in these systems; and (3) the fraction of massive halos at z ~ 3 that are not observed in UV-selected surveys is not large. From the fits, for a given choice of the cosmology, one can assign a scale of mass to the LBGs. For example, if Ω = 0.3 and ΩΛ = 0.7, the average mass of galaxies with luminosity ℛ = 23, 25.5, and 27.0 is = 2.5, 0.9, and 0.4 × 1012 M☉, respectively. The numbers are ≈2 times larger and ≈10 times smaller in an open universe with Ω = 0.2 and ΩΛ = 0 and in the Einstein-de Sitter cosmologies, respectively.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

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Citations in the corpus

Modeling Luminosity-dependent Galaxy Clustering through Cosmic Time (2005, background): “…to use their clustering properties to connect these galaxies to their host dark matter halos (e.g., Wechsler et al. 1998; Jing & Suto 1998; Adelberger et al. 1998; Katz et al. 1999; Mo et al. 1999; Wechsler et al. 2001; Giavalisco & Dickinson 2001; Bullock et al. 2002; Scannapieco & Thacker 2003).”
The Large-Scale and Small-Scale Clustering of Lyman Break Galaxies at 3.5 ⩽ z ⩽ 5.5 from the GOODS Survey (2005, methodology): “The technique and its application to clustering studies (Giavalisco et al. 1998; Adelberger et al. 1998; Giavalisco & Dickinson 2001) have been extensively discussed in the past, and we refer the reader to the cited literature.”
SPECTROSCOPIC CONFIRMATION OF THREE z-DROPOUT GALAXIES AT z = 6.844–7.213: DEMOGRAPHICS OF Lyα EMISSION IN z ∼ 7 GALAXIES (2011, background): “Given that the clustering strength of dropout galaxies increases with their UV luminosity (e.g., Giavalisco & Dickinson 2001; Ouchi et al. 2004; Adelberger et al. 2005; Lee et al. 2006), our results imply that the ionizing state of the IGM around galaxies hosted by less-massive dark matter halos…”
Ultradeep Near-Infrared ISAAC Observations of the Hubble Deep Field South: Observations, Reduction, Multicolor Catalog, and Photometric Redshifts (2002, background): “…1000 of these Lyman break galaxies (LBGs) are spectroscopically confirmed at ze2 and have been subject to targeted studies on spatial clustering (Giavalisco & Dickinson 2001), internal kinematics (Pettini et al. 1998, 2001), dust properties (Adelberger & Steidel 2000), and stellar composition…”
SPECTROSCOPIC OBSERVATIONS OF LYMAN BREAK GALAXIES AT REDSHIFTS ∼4, 5, AND 6 IN THE GOODS-SOUTH FIELD (2009, background): “…is generally consistent with the observed spatial clustering properties and the stellar populations of LBGs at z ∼ 3 and ∼ 4 (Giavalisco et al. 1998; Giavalisco & Dickinson 2001; Lee et al. 2006, 2008; Ouchi et al. 2005) and those of the BzK and DRG galaxies at z ∼ 2−2.5 (Kong et al. 2006;…”
The Spatial Clustering of Star-forming Galaxies at Redshifts 1.4 ≲ z ≲ 3.5 (2004, methodology): “Other investigators (e.g., Giavalisco & Dickinson 2001; Foucaud et al. 2003) have claimed that at redshift z 3 bright galaxies cluster more strongly than faint galaxies.”
The rising star formation histories of distant galaxies and implications for gas accretion with time (2010, background): “Moreover, this assumption is justified by observations that find a tight relationship between UV luminosity and halo mass (e.g., Giavalisco & Dickinson 2001; Adelberger et al. 2005; Lee et al. 2006, 2009).”
Lyman Break Galaxies at Redshift z ~ 3: Survey Description and Full Data Set (2003, methodology): “…1998; Adelberger et al. 1998; Adelberger et al. 2003) while the photometric samples, together with knowledge of the redshift selection function, have been used to measure clustering from various angular statistics (Giavalisco et al. 1998; Giavalisco & Dickinson 2001; Porciani & Giavalisco 2002).”
The Morphological Diversities among Star-forming Galaxies at High Redshifts in the Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey (2006, background): “…the direct progenitors of present day massive ellipticals and spheroids (Steidel et al. 1996; Giavalisco, Steidel, & Macchetto 1996; Adelberger et al. 1998; Steidel et al. 1998; Giavalisco et al. 1998; Giavalisco & Dickinson 2001; Porciani& Giavalisco 2002; Adelberger et al. 2005; Lee et al. 2005).”
Early and Rapid Merging as a Formation Mechanism of Massive Galaxies: Empirical Constraints (2005, background): “One possibility is that because higher mass and more luminous galaxies cluster more strongly than the lower mass and lower luminosity systems (e.g., Giavalisco & Dickinson 2001; Adelberger et al. 2005) the most massive systems are more likely to merge.”
The SCUBA 8-mJy survey - I. Submillimetre maps, sources and number counts (2001, background): “Furthermore, the correlations increase with UV luminosity (Giavalisco & Dickinson 2001), reaching scalelengths of r0 .”
Subaru Deep Survey. VI. A Census of Lyman Break Galaxies at z ≃ 4 and 5 in the Subaru Deep Fields: Clustering Properties (2003, methodology): “It is found from Figure 8 that brighter LBGs are clustered more strongly, which is a tendency similar to that found for present-day galaxies (Norberg et al. 2002) and LBGs at z = 3 (Giavalisco & Dickinson 2001).”
The Rest-Frame Optical Properties of z ≃ 3 Galaxies (2001, background): “…has focused on the large-scale clustering properties of the galaxies (e.g., Adelberger et al. 1998 ; Giavalisco et al. 1998 ; Steidel et al. 1998 ; Giavalisco & Dickinson 2001), on the properties of individual galaxies as deduced from their spectra (e.g., Pettini et al. 1998, 2000, 2001), or on…”
The Rest-Frame Far-Ultraviolet Morphologies of Star-Forming Galaxies at z ~ 1.5 and 4 (2006, background): “…that bright Lyman break galaxies (LBGs) are the likely progenitors of highly clustered present-day ellipticals (Giavalisco et al. 1994; Giavalisco 2002), although fainter LBGs aremuch less clustered (Giavalisco & Dickinson 2001) and alternative models are possible (e.g., Wechsler et al. 2001).”
The Assembly of Diversity in the Morphologies and Stellar Populations of High-Redshift Galaxies (2005, background): “Through arguments of the measured z 3 clustering and angular separation, this population may trace a one-to-one correspondence with massive dark matter halos (Adelberger et al. 1998; Giavalisco & Dickinson 2001; Porciani & Giavalisco 2002).”
Measuring the Redshift Evolution of Clustering: the Hubble Deep Field South (2001, background): “…355–366 Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article-abstract/329/2/355/996186 by guest on 25 July 2018 parameter of bðz ¼ 3Þ < 6 for the spectroscopic sample of LBGs while Giavalisco et al. (1998) found bðz ¼ 3Þ < 4:5 from the photometric sample (see also Giavalisco & Dickinson 2001).”