Angular Clustering with Photometric Redshifts in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: Bimodality in the Clustering Properties of Galaxies
Open accessAbstract
Understanding the clustering of galaxies has long been a goal of modern observational cosmology. Redshift surveys have been used to measure the correlation length as a function of luminosity and color. However, when subdividing the catalogs into multiple subsets, the errors increase rapidly. Angular clustering in magnitude-limited photometric surveys has the advantage of much larger catalogs but suffers from a dilution of the clustering signal because of the broad radial distribution of the sample. Also, up to now it has not been possible to select uniform subsamples based on physical parameters, such as luminosity and rest-frame color. Utilizing our photometric redshift technique, a volume-limited sample (0.1 < z < 0.3) containing more than 2 million galaxies is constructed from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey galaxy catalog. In the largest such analysis to date, we study the angular clustering as a function of luminosity and spectral type. Using Limber's equation, we calculate the clustering length for the full data set as r 0 = 5.77 ± 0.10 h -1 Mpc. We find that r 0 increases with luminosity by a factor of 1.6 over the sampled luminosity range, in agreement with previous redshift surveys. We also find that both the clustering length and the slope of the correlation function depend on the galaxy type. In particular, by splitting the galaxies in four groups by their rest-frame type, we find a bimodal behavior in their clustering properties. Galaxies with spectral types similar to elliptical galaxies have a correlation length of 6.59 ± 0.17 h -1 Mpc and a slope of the angular correlation function of 0.96 ± 0.05, while blue galaxies have a clustering length of 4.51 ± 0.19 h -1 Mpc and a slope of 0.68 ± 0.09. The two intermediate color groups behave like their more extreme "siblings" rather than showing a gradual transition in slope. We discuss these correlations in the context of current cosmological models for structure formation.
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The LSST filter complement (ugrizy) is modeled after the SDSS system because of its demonstrated success in photometric redshifts of galaxies, separation of stellar populations, and photometric selection of quasars.
“The LSST fi lter complement ( ugrizy ; see Figure 4 ) is modeled after the SDSS system ( Fukugita et al. 1996 ) because of its demonstrated success in a wide variety of applications, including photometric redshifts of galaxies ( Budavári et al. 2003 ) , separation of stellar populations ( Lenz et al. 1998; Helmi et al. 2003 ) , and photometric selection of quasars ( Richards et al. 2002; Ross et”
From LSST: From Science Drivers to Reference Design and Anticipated Data Products (2019) · cites this paper as Budavári et al. 2003
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“This is an area of ongoing study (e.g. Connolly et al. 2002; Budavari et al. 2003; Mobasher et al. 2004).”
Background
- Authors
- Budavari, T., Connolly, A. J., Szalay, A. S., Szapudi, I., Csabai, I., Scranton, R., Bahcall, N. A., Brinkmann, J., Eisenstein, D. J., Frieman, J. A., Fukugita, M., Gunn, J. E., Johnston, D., Kent, S., Loveday, J. N., Lupton, R. H., Tegmark, M., Thakar, A. R., Yanny, B., York, D. G., & Zehavi, I.
- Affiliations
- University of Pittsburgh (US)
- Johns Hopkins University (US)
- Princeton University (US)
- University of Arizona (US)
- Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (US)
- Institute for Cosmic Ray Research (JP)
- University of Sussex (GB)
- University of Pennsylvania (US)
- University of Chicago (US)
- ORCID
- Venue
- The Astrophysical Journal
- Publisher
- American Astronomical Society
- Published
- 2003-09-20
- Volume
- 595
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 59-70
- ISSN
- 0004-637X (ISSN-L)
- 1538-4357
- OpenAlex
- W2133224477
- Cited by
- 135
- References
- 39
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 1 · 2024: 1 · 2023: 1 · 2022: 1 · 2021: 1 · 2020: 3 · 2019: 3 · 2018: 3 · 2017: 3 · 2016: 8 · 2015: 3 · 2014: 6 · 2013: 3 · 2012: 3
- FWCI
- 9.06
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- The Astrophysical Journal (publishedVersion)
- arXiv (Cornell University) (submittedVersion)
- CERN Document Server (European Organization for Nuclear Research) (submittedVersion)
- ELTE Digital Institutional Repository (EDIT) (Eötvös Loránd University) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- arXiv (Cornell University)
- AAS
- Funders
- National Science Foundation (0121671, 9984924, 0206243)
- U.S. Department of Energy
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NAG511996, NAG58590, NAG510750)
- Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
- Princeton University
- University of Washington
- Johns Hopkins University
- University of Pittsburgh
- New Mexico State University
- Hungarian Scientific Research Fund
- Max-Planck-Gesellschaft
- Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie
- U.S. Naval Observatory
- Fermilab
- Los Alamos National Laboratory
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Astronomy and Astrophysics › Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Astronomy and Astrophysics › Cosmology and Gravitation Theories
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Astronomy and Astrophysics › Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies
- Keywords
- photometric redshifts, angular correlation function, correlation length, volume-limited sample, elliptical galaxies, blue galaxies, structure formation, Sloan Digital Sky Survey
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