Color dependence of clustering of massive galaxies at 0.5$\le z \le$2.5: similar spatial distributions between green valley galaxies and AGNs

TL;DR

This study investigates how the spatial clustering of massive galaxies at redshifts 0.5 to 2.5 depends on their UV colors, revealing that green valley galaxies share similar clustering properties with AGNs, implying a possible link to galaxy transformation processes.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of the color-dependent clustering of massive galaxies across redshifts and highlights the similarity between green valley galaxies and AGNs in their spatial distribution.

Findings

UV redder galaxies are more clustered.

Green valley galaxies have clustering similar to AGNs.

Median stellar mass predicts clustering behavior.

Abstract

We present a measurement of the spatial clustering of rest-frame UV-selected massive galaxies at $0.5\le z \le 2.5$ in the COSMOS/UltraVISTA field. Considering four separate redshift bins with $\Delta z=0.5$, we construct three galaxy populations, i.e., red sequence (RS), blue cloud (BC), and green valley (GV) galaxies, according to their rest-frame extinction-corrected UV colors. The correlation lengths of these populations are confirmed to be dependent on their rest-frame UV color and redshift: UV redder galaxies are found to be more clustered. In all redshift bins, the GV galaxies generally have medium clustering amplitudes and are hosted within dark matter halos whose masses are more or less between those of RS and BC galaxies; and the clustering amplitude of GV galaxies is close to that of AGNs in the same redshift bin, suggesting that AGN activity may be responsible for transforming galaxy colors. After carefully examining their stellar masses, we find that the clustering amplitudes of galaxy samples with different colors are all similar once they have a similar median stellar mass and that the median stellar mass alone may be a good predictor of galaxy clustering.