Open AccessEvolution of galaxy clustering
Author(s) -
Bagla J. S.
Publication year - 1998
Publication title -
monthly notices of the royal astronomical society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.058
H-Index - 383
eISSN - 1365-2966
pISSN - 0035-8711
DOI - 10.1046/j.1365-8711.1998.01788.x
Subject(s) - physics , astrophysics , correlation function (quantum field theory) , halo , amplitude , dark matter , galaxy , spectral density , cluster (spacecraft) , galaxy formation and evolution , cluster analysis , cosmology , astronomy , statistics , mathematics , optoelectronics , quantum mechanics , computer science , dielectric , programming language
We study the evolution of the correlation function of dark matter haloes in the CDM class of models. We show that the halo correlation function does not evolve in proportion with the correlation function of the underlying mass distribution. The earliest haloes to collapse, which correspond to rare peaks in the density field, cluster very strongly. The amplitude of the halo correlation function decreases from its initial, large, value. This decrease continues until the average peaks have collapsed, after which the amplitude grows slowly. This behaviour is shown to be generic and the epoch of minimum amplitude depends only on the rms fluctuations in mass at the relevant scale and, to a much smaller extent, on the slope of the power spectrum at that scale. We discuss the relevance of this result for interpretation of observations of galaxy and quasar clustering.