The Durham/UKST Galaxy Redshift Survey - III. Large-scale structure via the two-point correlation function

Abstract

We have investigated the statistical clustering properties of galaxies by calculating the two-point galaxy correlation function from the optically selected Durham/ UKST Galaxy Redshift Survey. This survey is magnitude-limited to bJ ∼ 17, contains ∼ 2500 galaxies sampled at a rate of one-in-three and surveys a ∼ 4 × 106 (h-1 Mpc)3 volume of space. We have empirically determined the optimal method of estimating the two-point correlation function from just such a magnitude-limited survey. Applying our methods to this survey, we find that our redshift-space results agree well with those from previous optical surveys. In particular, we confirm the previously claimed detections of large-scale power out to ∼40 h-1 Mpc scales. We compare with two common models of cosmological structure formation and find that our two-point correlation function has power significantly in excess of the standard cold dark matter model in the 10-30 h-1 Mpc region. We therefore support the observational results of the APM galaxy survey. Given that only the redshift-space clustering can be measured directly, we use standard modelling methods and indirectly estimate the real-space two-point correlation function from the projected two-point correlation function. We then invert this projected correlation function to obtain an estimate of the spatial two-point correlation function in real space. This correlation function in real space has a lower amplitude than that in redshift space, but a steeper slope.