No Arabic abstract
We have investigated the dependence of galaxy clustering on their stellar mass at z~1, using the data from the VIMOS-VLT Deep Survey (VVDS). We have measured the projected two-point correlation function of galaxies, wp(rp) for a set of stellar mass selected samples at an effective redshift <z>=0.85. We have control and quantify all effects on galaxy clustering due to the incompleteness of our low mass samples. We find that more massive galaxies are more clustered. When compared to similar results at z~0.1 in the SDSS, we observed no evolution of the projected correlation function for massive galaxies. These objects present a stronger linear bias at z~1 with respect to low mass galaxies. As expected, massive objects at high redshift are found in the highest pics of the dark matter density field.
Aims: We use the VVDS-Deep first-epoch data to measure the dependence of galaxy clustering on galaxy stellar mass, at z~0.85. Methods: We measure the projected correlation function wp(rp) for sub-samples with 0.5<z<1.2 covering different mass ranges between 10^9 and 10^11 Msun. We quantify in detail the observational selection biases using 40 mock catalogues built from the Millennium run and semi-analytic models. Results: Our simulations indicate that serious incompleteness in mass is present only for log(M/Msun)<9.5. In the mass range log(M/Msun)=[9.0-9.5], the photometric selection function of the VVDS misses 2/3rd of the galaxies. The sample is virtually 100% complete above 10^10 Msun. We present the first direct evidence for a clear dependence of clustering on the galaxy stellar mass at z~0.85. The clustering length increases from r0 ~ 2.76 h^-1 Mpc for galaxies with mass M>10^9 Msun to r0 ~ 4.28 h^-1 Mpc for galaxies more massive than 10^10.5 Msun. At the same time, the slope increases from ~ 1.67 to ~ 2.28. A comparison of the observed wp(rp) to local measurements by the SDSS shows that the evolution is faster for objects less massive than ~10^10.5 Msun. This is interpreted as a higher dependence on redshift of the linear bias b_L for the more massive objects. While for the most massive galaxies b_L decreases from 1.5+/-0.2 at z~0.85 to 1.33+/-0.03 at z~0.15, the less massive population maintains a virtually constant value b_L~1.3. This result is in agreement with a scenario in which more massive galaxies formed at high redshift in the highest peaks of the density field, while less massive objects form at later epochs from the more general population of dark-matter halos.
We selected a mass-limited sample of 4048 objects from the VIMOS VLT Deep Survey in the redshift interval 0.5<z<1.3. We used the amplitude of the 4000 Balmer break (Dn4000) to separate the galaxy population and the EW[OII]3727 line as proxy for the star formation activity. We discuss to what extent stellar mass drives galaxy evolution, showing for the first time the interplay between stellar ages and stellar masses over the past 8Gyr. Low-mass galaxies have small Dn4000 and at increasing stellar mass, the galaxy distribution moves to higher Dn4000 values as observed in the local Universe. As cosmic time goes by, we witness an increasing abundance of massive spectroscopically ET systems at the expense of the LT systems. This spectral transformation is a process started at early epochs and continuing efficiently down to the local Universe. This is confirmed by the evolution of our type-dependent stellar mass function. The underlying stellar ages of LT galaxies apparently do not show evolution, likely as a result of a continuous formation of new stars. All star formation activity indicators consistently point towards a star formation history peaked in the past for massive galaxies, with little or no residual star formation taking place in the most recent epochs. The activity and efficiency of forming stars are mechanisms that depend on stellar mass, and the mass assembly becomes progressively less efficient in massive systems as time elapses. The concepts of star formation downsizing and mass assembly downsizing describe a single scenario that has a top-down evolutionary pattern. The role of (dry) merging events seems to be only marginal at z<1.3, as our estimated efficiency in stellar mass assembly can possibly account for the progressive accumulation of passively evolving galaxies.
We measure the evolution of clustering for galaxies with different spectral types from 6495 galaxies with 17.5<=I_AB<=24 and measured spectroscopic redshift in the first epoch VIMOS-VLT Deep Survey. We classify our sample into 4 classes, based on the fit of well-defined galaxy spectral energy distributions on observed multi-color data. We measure the projected function wp(rp) and estimate the best-fit parameters for a power-law real-space correlation function. We find the clustering of early-spectral-type galaxies to be markedly stronger than that of late-type galaxies at all redshifts up to z<=1.2. At z~0.8, early-type galaxies display a correlation length r_0=4.8+/-0.9h^{-1}Mpc, while late types have r_0=2.5+/-0.4h^{-1}Mpc. The clustering of these objects increases up to r_0=3.42+/-0.7h^{-1}Mpc for z~1.4. The relative bias between early- and late-type galaxies within our magnitude-limited survey remains approximately constant with b~1.7-1.8 from z~=0.2 up to z~=1, with indications for a decrease at z>1.2, due to the growth in clustering of the star-forming population. We find similar results when splitting the sample into `red and `blue galaxies using the observed color bi-modality. When compared to the expected linear growth of mass fluctuations, a natural interpretation of these observations is that: (a) the assembly of massive early type galaxies is already mostly complete in the densest dark matter halos at z~=1; (b) luminous late-type galaxies are located in higher-density, more clustered regions of the Universe at z~=1.5 than at present, indicating that star formation activity is progressively increasing, going back in time, in the higher-density peaks that today are mostly dominated by old galaxies.
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.
This paper presents the evolution of the clustering of the main population of galaxies from z=2.1 to z=0.2, from the first epoch VIMOS VLT Deep Survey (VVDS), a magnitude limited sample with 17.5<=I_{AB}<=24. We have computed the correlation functions xi(r_p,pi) and w_p(r_p), and the correlation length r_0(z), for the VVDS-02h and VVDS-CDFS fields, for a total of 7155 galaxies in a 0.61deg^2 area. We find that the correlation length in this sample stays roughly constant from z=0.5 to z=1.1, with r_0(z)=2.5-2.8 h^{-1} Mpc (comoving), for galaxies comparable in luminosity to the local 2dFGRS and SDSS samples, indicating that the amplitude of the correlation function was ~2.5x lower at z~1 than observed locally. The correlation length in our lowest redshift bin z=[0.2,0.5] is r_0=2.4 h^{-1} Mpc, lower than for any other population at the same redshift, indicating the low clustering of very low luminosity galaxies, 1.5 magnitudes fainter than in the 2dFGRS or SDSS. The correlation length is increasing to r_0~3.0 h^{-1} Mpc at higher redshifts z=[1.3,2.1], as we are observing increasingly brighter galaxies, comparable to galaxies with MB_AB=-20.5 locally. We compare our measurement to the DEEP2 measurements in the range z=[0.7,1.35] citep{coil} on the population selected applying the same magnitude and color selection criteria as in their survey, and find comparable results. The slowly varying clustering of VVDS galaxies as redshift increases is markedly different from the predicted evolution of the clustering of dark matter, indicating that bright galaxies are already tracing the large scale structures emerging from the dark matter distribution 9-10 billion years ago, a supporting evidence for a strong evolution of the galaxy vs. dark matter bias.