The VIMOS VLT Deep Survey: Computing the two point correlation statistics and associated uncertainties

Abstract

We are presenting in this paper a detailed account of the methods used to compute the three-dimensional two-point galaxy correlation function in the VIMOS-VLT deep survey (VVDS). We investigate how instrumental selection effects and observational biases affect the measurements and identify the methods to correct them. We quantify the accuracy of our correction method using an ensemble of fifty mock galaxy surveys generated with the GalICS semi-analytic model of galaxy formation which incorporate the same selection biases and tiling strategy as the real data does. We demonstrate that we are able to recover the real-space two-point correlation function xi(s) to an accuracy better than 10% on scales larger than 1 h^{-1} Mpc, and of about 30% on scales below 1 h^{-1} Mpc, with the sampling strategy used for the first epoch VVDS data. The projected correlation function w_p(r_p) is recovered with an accuracy better than 10% on all scales 0.1 <= r <= 10 h^{-1} Mpc. There is a tendency for a small but systematic under-estimate of the correlation length derived from w_p(r_p) of 6% on average, remaining after our correction process. The large number of simulated surveys allows us to provide a reliable estimate of the cosmic error on the measurements of the correlation length r_0, of about 15-20% for the first epoch VVDS observation (Le Fevre et al.2004, astro-ph/0409133). The error estimation and measurement techniques outlined in this paper are being used in several studies which investigate in detail the clustering properties of galaxies in the VVDS data.

16 pages, accepted 10-Mar-05 in A&A

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Cited by in corpus (27)

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• The VIMOS Public Extragalactic Redshift Survey (VIPERS). Luminosity and stellar mass dependence of galaxy clustering at 0.5<z<1.1
• The zCOSMOS Survey. The dependence of clustering on luminosity and stellar mass at z=0.2-1
• The VIMOS VLT Deep Survey - The evolution of galaxy clustering to z=2 from first epoch observations
• The VIMOS VLT Deep Survey: Evolution of the non-linear galaxy bias up to z=1.5
• The VIMOS-VLT Deep Survey - The evolution of galaxy clustering per spectral type to z~1.5
• Modelling non-linear redshift-space distortions in the galaxy clustering pattern: systematic errors on the growth rate parameter
• The VIMOS-VLT Deep Survey: Luminosity dependence of clustering at z~1
• The VIMOS VLT Deep Survey: the faint type-1 AGN sample
• The evolution of clustering length, large-scale bias and host halo mass at 2<z<5 in the VIMOS Ultra Deep Survey (VUDS)
• The VIMOS VLT Deep Survey: the group catalogue
• The VIMOS-VLT Deep Survey: Evolution in the Halo Occupation Number since z $\sim$ 1
• The VIMOS Ultra Deep Survey. Luminosity and stellar mass dependence of galaxy clustering at z~3
• The VIMOS Public Extragalactic Redshift Survey (VIPERS): Reconstruction of the redshift-space galaxy density field
• Imprint of DESI fiber assignment on the anisotropic power spectrum of emission line galaxies
• VVDS-SWIRE: Clustering evolution from a spectroscopic sample of galaxies with redshift 0.2<z<2.1 selected from Spitzer IRAC 3.6 micron and 4.5 micron photometry
• A new methodology to test galaxy formation models using the dependence of clustering on stellar mass
• The zCOSMOS-Bright survey: the clustering of early and late galaxy morphological types since z~1
• Comparison of the VIMOS-VLT Deep Survey with the Munich semi-analytical model - I. Magnitude counts, redshift distribution, colour bimodality, and galaxy clustering
• Autocorrelations of stellar light and mass at z~0 and ~1: From SDSS to DEEP2
• The VIMOS VLT Deep Survey: Testing the gravitational instability paradigm at z ~ 1
• Clustering of galaxies at 3.6 microns in the Spitzer Wide-area Infrared Extragalactic legacy survey
• The association between gas and galaxies III: The Cross-correlation of Galaxies and Ly-alpha Absorbers at z ~ 1
• Galaxy and Mass Assembly (GAMA): Tracing galaxy environment using the marked correlation function
• Clustering of the AKARI NEP Deep Field 24 $\mu$m selected galaxies