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 2-point galaxy correlation function from the 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 \times 10^6 (h^-1Mpc)^3 volume of space. We have empirically determined the optimal method of estimating the 2-point correlation function from just such a magnitude limited survey. Using this method, our correlation function results confirm the previously claimed detections of large scale power out to 40h^-1 Mpc scales. We compare with two common models of cosmological structure formation and find that our 2-point correlation function has power significantly in excess of the standard cold dark matter model in the 10-30h^-1 Mpc region, supporting the observational results of the APM galaxy survey.