Key points are not available for this paper at this time.
We investigate the dependence of galaxy clustering on the galaxy intrinsic luminosity at high redshift, using the data from the First Epoch VIMOS-VLT Deep Survey (VVDS). The size (6530 galaxies) and depth () of the survey allows us to measure the projected two-point correlation function of galaxies, , for a set of volume-limited samples up to an effective redshift and median absolute magnitude . Fitting with a single power-law model for the real-space correlation function , we measure the relationship of the correlation length r0 and the slope γ with the sample median luminosity for the first time at such high redshift. Values from our lower-redshift samples () are fully consistent with the trend observed by larger local surveys. In our high redshift sample (), we find that the clustering strength suddenly rises around , apparently with a sharper inflection than at low redshifts. Galaxies in the faintest sample () have a correlation length h-1 Mpc, compared to h-1 Mpc at . The slope of the correlation function is observed to correspondingly steepen significantly from to . This is not observed either by large local surveys or in our lower-redshift samples and seems to imply a significant change in the way luminous galaxies trace dark-matter halos at with respect to . At our effective median redshift this corresponds to a strong difference of the relative bias, from for galaxies with to for galaxies with .
Pollo et al. (Mon,) studied this question.