# 1 The ESP Survey

## 1 The ESP Survey

The original goal of the ESO Slice Project (ESP) redshift survey was essentially twofold. First, we wanted to produce a measure of the galaxy luminosity function in the “local” ($`z<0.2`$) Universe, with large dynamic range. Second, we wanted to study the clustering of galaxies from a survey hopefully not dominated by a single major superstructure, as it was the case for the surveys available at the beginning of this decade. While the ESP luminosity function and its implications are discussed in detail in  and summarised also in these proceedings by Elena Zucca, here we shall summarise our results on the two–point correlation properties of galaxies.

The ESP survey covers a strip of sky $`1^{}`$ thick (DEC) by $`30^{}`$ long (RA) (with an unobserved $`5^{}`$ sector inside this strip), in the SGP region. The target galaxies were selected from the EDSGC , and the final catalogue contains 3342 redshifts, corresponding to a completeness of 85% at a magnitude limit $`b_J=19.4`$ . We use $`H_o=100\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ Mpc<sup>-1</sup> and $`q_o=0.5`$. Magnitudes are K–corrected as described in .

## 2 Clustering in Redshift Space

The filled circles in Figure 1 show $`\xi (s)`$ computed from the whole ESP magnitude–limited sample using the J3–weighting technique, (e.g. ). Note the smooth decay from the power law at large separations, with correlations going to zero only around $`80\mathrm{h}^1\mathrm{Mpc}`$, and perhaps some evidence for a positive fluctuation around $`200\mathrm{h}^1\mathrm{Mpc}`$. Below $`3\mathrm{h}^1\mathrm{Mpc}`$, $`\xi (s)`$ tends to flatten. This is the effect of redshift–space damping from pairs within virialized structures and interestingly it is less prominent when $`\xi (s)`$ is computed for volume–limited subsamples . In the same figure, we show $`\xi (s)`$ from the Las Campanas (LCRS, ), and APM–Stromlo  redshift surveys. There is a rather good agreement of the three independent data sets between 2 and $`20\mathrm{h}^1\mathrm{Mpc}`$ (where $`\xi (s)=(s/s_{})^\gamma `$, with $`s_{}6\mathrm{h}^1\mathrm{Mpc}`$ and $`\gamma 1.5`$), with perhaps a hint for more power on larger scales in the blue–selected ESP and APM–Stromlo. In addition, the dashed lines describe the real–space $`\xi (r)`$ obtained by de-projecting the angular correlation function $`w(\theta )`$ of the APM Galaxy Catalogue , for two different assumptions on the evolution of clustering. It is rather interesting to note the degree of unanimity between the angular and redshift data in indicating both the large–scale shape and the zero-crossing scale ($`4090\mathrm{h}^1\mathrm{Mpc}`$) of galaxy correlations. The small amplitude difference between the redshift and real–space correlations on scales $`>5\mathrm{h}^1\mathrm{Mpc}`$ is also remarkable, because it suggests a small amplification of $`\xi (s)`$ due to streaming flows, and thus a low value of $`\beta =\mathrm{\Omega }_o/b`$.

## 3 Clustering in Real Space

Redshift distortions produced by peculiar velocities, are usually studied through the function $`\xi (r_p,\pi )`$ , that describes galaxy correlations as a function of two variables, one perpendicular ($`r_p`$), and the other parallel ($`\pi `$), to a sort of mean line of sight defined for each galaxy pair. In Figure 2, we show $`\xi (r_p,\pi )`$ computed for the whole ESP survey, using the same technique used for $`\xi (s)`$ . From this figure, one can clearly see the small–scale stretching of the contours along $`\pi `$, produced by the relative velocity dispersion of pairs within structures.

Projecting $`\xi (r_p,\pi )`$ onto the $`r_p`$ axis, one gets the function $`w_p(r_p)`$, which is independent from the redshift–distortion field, and is analytically integrable for a power–law $`\xi (r)=(r/r_{})^\gamma `$. In this case, the values of $`r_{}`$ and $`\gamma `$ that best reproduce the data can be evaluated through an appropriate best–fitting procedure. By applying this to the map of Figure 2, we recover $`r_o=4.15_{0.21}^{+0.20}h^1`$ Mpc and $`\gamma =1.67_{0.09}^{+0.07}`$, a value that is slightly smaller than that measured from the red-selected LCRS .

Finally, we have investigated the stability of $`\xi (r)`$ as a function of the sample mean luminosity, by computing $`w_p(r_p)`$ for four volume–limited subsamples. Figure 3 shows the result of the power–law fit to $`w_p(r_p)`$ , evidencing a weak, but significant growth of $`r_{}`$ and $`\gamma `$ when more and more luminous galaxies are selected. Interestingly, this behaviour is completely masked if one looks at $`\xi (s)`$ , the reason being the rather different small–scale distortion acting in the four cases, that basically compensates the (real–space) growth of clustering. This shows the importance of separating out dynamical effects when comparing the clustering of different classes of objects through the two–point correlation function.