Red Galaxy Clustering in the NOAO Deep Wide-Field Survey

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Abstract
We have measured the clustering of z1000 galaxies to be selected as a function of spectral type, absolute magnitude, and photometric redshift. Spectral synthesis models can be used to predict the colors and luminosities of a galaxy population as a function of redshift. We have used PEGASE2 models, with exponentially declining star formation rates, to estimate the observed colors and luminosity evolution of galaxies and to connect, as an evolutionary sequence, related populations of galaxies at different redshifts. Red galaxy samples, with present-day rest-frame Vega colors of Bw-R>1.44 and Bw-R>1.70, were chosen to allow direct comparison with the 2dFGRS and SDSS low z early-type galaxy samples. We find the spatial clustering of red galaxies to be a strong function of luminosity, with r_0 increasing from 4.4+/-0.4 Mpc/h at M_R=-20.0 to 11.2+/-1.0 Mpc/h at M_R=-22.0. Clustering evolution measurements using samples where the rest-frame selection criteria vary with redshift, including all deep single-band magnitude limited samples, are biased due to the correlation of clustering with rest-frame color and luminosity. The clustering of M_R -21, B_W-R>1.44 galaxies exhibits no significant evolution over the redshift range observed with r_0=6.3+/-0.5 Mpc/h in comoving coordinates. This is consistent with recent LCDM models where the bias of L* galaxies undergoes rapid evolution and r_0 evolves very slowly at z<2.

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