We have previously found in the Hubble Deep Field (HDF) a significant
angular correlation of faint, high-color redshift objects on scales be
low 1'', or several kiloparsecs in metric size. A correlation at this
scale is most likely due to physical associations. We examine the corr
elation and nearest neighbor statistics to conclude that 38% of these
objects in the HDF have a companion within 1'' (or similar to 6 kpc),
3 times the number expected in a random distribution with the same num
ber of objects; the total excess approaches 1.5 objects by separations
of 10''. We next examine three possible dynamical scenarios for these
object multiplets: (1) the objects are star-forming regions within no
rmal galaxies, whose disks have been relatively dimmed by K-correction
and surface brightness dimming; (2) they are fragments merging into l
arge galaxies; (3) they are satellites accreting onto parent normal L
galaxies. We find that hypothesis 1 is most tenable. First, large gal
axies in the process of a merger formation would have accumulated too
much mass in their centers (5 x 10(12) M. inside 2 kpc) to correspond
to any abundant category of present-day objects. Second, accretion by
dynamical friction occurs with a predictable slope in density versus r
adius that is not seen among the faint HDF objects. Since the dynamica
l friction time is roughly 1 Gyr, a steady state should have been reac
hed by redshift z less than or similar to 5. In the context of these t
wo dynamical scenarios, we consider the possible effects of a gradient
in mass-to-light ratio caused by induced star formation during infall
. We note that star-forming regions within galaxies clearly present no
dynamical problems, but also that large spirals would still appear as
such in the HDF, which leads us to favor a scenario in which the fain
t compact sources in the HDF are giant star-forming regions within sma
ll normal galaxies, such as Magellanic irregulars. Last, we note that
the ''excess'' number of correlated objects near a given faint source
approaches 1.5, suggesting that the previous counts of objects have ov
erestimated the number of galaxies by a factor of 2.5 while underestim
ating their individual luminosities by the same factor.