The angular correlation function of galaxies with B ~ 25 mag
N. Roche, T. Shanks, N. Metcalfe, R. Fong · Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society · 1993
We investigate the angular two-point correlation functions, ω(θ), for a sample of 4540 faint galaxies observed in the blue passband to a magnitude limit Bccd = 25.0, and for a sample of 3627 galaxies observed in the red passband to Rccd = 23.5. Our results are in reasonable agreement with those from earlier photographic surveys to B ≃ 24 and R ≃ 23. It is found that, for both the blue-selected and the red-selected samples, the correlation amplitude is significantly lower at our faint magnitude limits than would be expected for a model in which clustering is stable in proper coordinates and the redshift distribution maintains a no-evolution form. These results suggest that the flat- spectrum objects appearing faintwards of B ≃ 23 are, if they are clustered as normal galaxies, broadly distributed in redshift over 1 ≤ z ≤ 3. If they are at lower redshifts, their clustering must be much weaker than that expected from a stable clustering model.