The VIMOS Public Extragalactic Redshift Survey (VIPERS). Luminosity and stellar mass dependence of galaxy clustering at 0.5<z<1.1

TL;DR

This study analyzes how galaxy clustering depends on luminosity and stellar mass at redshifts 0.5 to 1.1 using VIPERS data, providing new constraints for galaxy formation models.

Contribution

It offers the first detailed measurements of galaxy clustering dependence on luminosity and stellar mass at 0.5<z<1.1, with improved constraints and analysis of sample biases.

Findings

Clustering strength increases with luminosity and stellar mass.

Provides the tightest constraints on luminosity dependence of clustering at 0.5<z<1.1.

Highlights complexities in comparing stellar mass clustering from flux-limited samples.

Abstract

We investigate the dependence of galaxy clustering on luminosity and stellar mass in the redshift range 0.5<z<1.1, using the first ~55000 redshifts from the VIMOS Public Extragalactic Redshift Survey (VIPERS). We measured the redshift-space two-point correlation functions (2PCF), and the projected correlation function, in samples covering different ranges of B-band absolute magnitudes and stellar masses. We considered both threshold and binned galaxy samples, with median B-band absolute magnitudes -21.6<MB-5log(h)<-19.5 and median stellar masses 9.8<log(M*[Msun/h^2])<10.7. We assessed the real-space clustering in the data from the projected correlation function, which we model as a power law in the range 0.2<r_p[Mpc/h]<20. Finally, we estimated the galaxy bias as a function of luminosity, stellar mass, and redshift, assuming a flat LCDM model to derive the dark matter 2PCF. We provide the best-fit parameters of the power-law model assumed for the real-space 2PCF -- the correlation length and the slope -- as well as the linear bias parameter, as a function of the B-band absolute magnitude, stellar mass, and redshift. We confirm and provide the tightest constraints on the dependence of clustering on luminosity at 0.5<z<1.1. We prove the complexity of comparing the clustering dependence on stellar mass from samples that are originally flux-limited and discuss the possible origin of the observed discrepancies. Overall, our measurements provide stronger constraints on galaxy formation models, which are now required to match, in addition to local observations, the clustering evolution measured by VIPERS galaxies between z=0.5 and z=1.1 for a broad range of luminosities and stellar masses.