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Intrinsically bright galaxies appear systematically more correlated than faint galaxies in the Center for Astrophysics redshift survey. The amplification of the 2-point correlation function behaves exponentially with luminosity, being essentially flat up to the knee of the luminosity function, then increasing markedly. The amplification reaches a factor of 3. 5e^+/-0. 4^ in the very brightest galaxies. The effect is dominated by spirals rather than ellipticals, so that the correlation function of bright spirals becomes comparable to that of normal ellipticals. Similar results are obtained whether the correlation function is measured in two or three dimensions. The effect persists to separations of a correlation length or more, and is not confined to the cores of the Virgo, Coma, and Abell 1367 clusters, suggesting that the effect is caused by biasing, that is, galaxies kindle preferentially in more clustered regions, rather than by gravitational relaxation.
A. Hamilton (Mon,) studied this question.