MOIRCS Deep Survey. II. Clustering Properties of K-Band Selected Galaxies in GOODS-North Region

We present the first measurement of clustering properties of low-mass galaxies with a stellar mass down to M_*~ 10⁹ M_ at 1< z <4 in 24.4 arcmin² of the GOODS-North region with a depth of KAB~25. Luminous galaxies in the K-band have a larger correlation length than faint galaxies. For color-selected samples at 2< z <4, distant red galaxies with J-K >1.3 show a large bias of b~7.2±1.3 on scales of up to θ~100^ or 3.1 comoving Mpc, while blue galaxies with 0.5< J-K <1.3 have a weak clustering signal on large scales, but a possible strong small-scale excess at θ <10^. For massive galaxies with M_* 10¹⁰M_, we estimate the correlation length and bias to be r₀~4.5h⁻¹Mpc and $b=$1.9–3.5, which are much larger than those of low-mass (M_*~10⁹-10¹⁰M_) galaxies. The comparison of our measurements with analytic CDM models constrains the properties of hosting dark halos, and indicates that the low-mass galaxies would be progenitors of galaxies with a typical luminosity of L L_* in the local Universe. The blue galaxies in low-mass samples are more strongly clustered in more massive halos with higher occupation numbers than low-mass red galaxies. This fact suggests an environment effect due to the halo mass on the star-formation activity at high-z.