How Stochastic Is the Relative Bias between Galaxy Types?

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Abstract
Examining the nature of the relative clustering of different galaxy types can help tell us how galaxies formed. To measure this relative clustering, I perform a joint counts-in-cells analysis of galaxies of different spectral types in the Las Campanas Redshift Survey (LCRS). I develop a maximum-likelihood technique to fit for the relationship between the density fields of early- and late-type galaxies. This technique can directly measure nonlinearity and stochasticity in the biasing relation. At high significance, a small amount of stochasticity is measured, corresponding to a correlation coefficient of about 0.87 on scales corresponding to 15 Mpc/h spheres. A large proportion of this signal appears to derive from errors in the selection function, and a more realistic estimate finds a correlation coefficient of about 0.95. These selection function errors probably account for the large stochasticity measured by Tegmark & Bromley (1999), and may have affected measurements of very large-scale structure in the LCRS. Analysis of the data and of mock catalogs shows that the peculiar geometry, variable flux limits, and central surface-brightness selection effects of the LCRS do not seem to cause the effect.Comment: 38 pages, 14 figures. Submitted to Apj. Modified from a chapter of my Ph.D. Thesis at Princeton University, available at http://www-astro-theory.fnal.gov/Personal/blanton/thesis/index.htm
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