2005/01/10 by O. Almaini, J. S. Dunlop, C. J. Willott +3
Physics and Astronomy · #Astronomy and Astrophysical Research #Astrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1111/j.1365-2966.2005.08790.x
published as Mon.Not.Roy.Astron.Soc. 358 (2005) 875-882 · 8 pages, 7 figures, MNRAS in press
arxiv created 2005/01/10 · openalex publication_date 2005/03/23 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We present evidence for a positive angular correlation between bright submillimetre (sub-mm) sources and low-redshift galaxies. The study was conducted using 39 sources selected from three contiguous, flux-limited SCUBA surveys, cross-correlated with optical field galaxies with magnitudes R < 23 (with a median redshift of z≃ 0.5). We find that the angular distribution of sub-mm sources is skewed towards overdensities in the galaxy population, consistent with 25 ± 12 per cent being associated with dense, low-redshift structure. The signal appears to be dominated by the brightest sources with a flux density S850 μm > 10 mJy. We conduct Monte Carlo simulations of clustered sub-mm populations, and find that the probability of obtaining these correlations by chance is less than 0.4 per cent. The results may suggest that a larger than expected fraction of sub-mm sources lies at z≃ 0.5. Alternatively, we argue that this signal is most likely caused by gravitational lensing bias, which may be entirely expected given the steep sub-mm source counts. Implications for future sub-mm surveys are discussed.