Evolution in the clustering strength of radio galaxies

Abstract

We cross match the NRAO VLA Sky Survey and Faint Images of the Radio Sky at Twenty-cm surveys with three large photometric catalogues of luminous red galaxies (LRGs) to define radio-loud samples. These have median redshifts 0.35, 0.55 and 0.68 and, by matching rest-frame optical and radio properties, we construct uniform samples across the three surveys. This paper is concerned with the clustering properties of these samples derived from the angular correlation function. The primary aim is to characterize any evolution in the clustering amplitude of radio galaxies below z~ 0.68. We find no evidence for evolution in the large-scale (~1-50h-1Mpc) clustering amplitude. Our radio galaxy autocorrelations are consistent with previous findings indicating little-to-no evolution in the redshift range 0.68-0 (~6Gyr of time). We also cross-correlate radio galaxies with the parent LRG samples to increase the precision of our results and again find no evidence for evolution in comoving coordinates. Our results are inconsistent with a long-lived model for the clustering evolution that assumes radio sources randomly sample the LRG population. A model where the halo mass is constant with redshift is consistent with the data. This is similar to quasi-stellar object (QSOs) that have clustering amplitudes consistent with a single halo mass at all redshifts. Given that the brightest radio sources show stronger evolution in space density compared to fainter radio sources we restrict our samples to include only objects with L > 1026WHz-1 and repeat the analysis. Again we find no evidence for evolution in the comoving correlation amplitude. These radio sources appear to inhabit the same mass haloes as fainter radio galaxies (~9 × 1013h-1M⊙). These haloes are ~twice as massive as those of the general LRG population (~4 × 1013h-1M⊙) and ~30 times as massive as optical AGN/QSOs (~3 × 1012h-1M⊙). © 2011 The Authors. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society © 2011 RAS.