2000MNRAS.318..913M

We present a study of the angular correlation function as measured in the William Herschel Deep Field, a high galactic latitude field which has been the subject of an extensive observing campaign from optical to infrared wavelengths. It covers 50arcmin² and with it we are able to investigate the scaling of the angular correlation function to B∼28, R, I∼26, K∼20 and H∼22.5. We compare our measurements to results obtained from the smaller Hubble Deep Field. To interpret our results, we use a model which correctly predicts colours, number counts and redshift distributions for the faint galaxy population. We find that at fixed separation the amplitude of ω(θ) measured in BRI bandpasses is lower than the predictions of a model containing no luminosity evolution and stable clustering growth in proper coordinates. However, in the near-infrared bandpasses, our measurements are consistent with the predictions of an essentially non-evolving K-selected galaxy redshift distribution. In the range B∼27-28 we find that our correlation amplitudes are independent of magnitude, which is consistent with the observed flattening of the number count slope and correspondingly slower increase of the cosmological volume element expected at these magnitudes.

If our luminosity evolution models provide a correct description of the underlying redshift distributions (and comparisons to available observations at brighter magnitudes suggest they do), then our measurements in all bandpasses are consistent with a rapid growth of galaxy clustering (0<ε<2 in the normal parametrization) on the sub-Mpc scales which our survey probes. We demonstrate that this rapid growth of clustering is consistent with the predictions of biased models of galaxy formation, which indicate that a rapid rate of clustering growth is expected for the intrinsically faint galaxies which dominate our survey.