Wide-field imaging of the Hubble Deep Field-South region. II. The evolution of galaxy clustering at z < 1

We present the galaxy-galaxy angular correlations as a function of photomet ric redshift in a deep, wide galaxy survey centered on the Hubble Deep Fiel d-South (HDF-S). Images were obtained with the Big Throughput Camera on the Blanco 4 m telescope at CTIO, of 1/2 square degree in broadband uBV RI, re aching similar to 24 mag. Approximately 40,000 galaxies are detected in the survey. We determine photometric redshifts using galaxy template fitting t o the photometry. Monte Carlo simulations show that redshifts from these da ta should be reliable out to z similar to 1, where the 4000 Angstrom shifts into the I band. The inferred redshift distribution, n(z), shows good agre ement with the distribution of galaxies measured in the Hubble Deep Field-N orth (HDF-N) and the Canada-France Redshift Survey. After assigning galaxie s to redshift bins with width Deltaz = 0.33, we determine the two-point ang ular correlation function in each bin. We find that the amplitude of the co rrelation A(w), drops across the three bins to redshift z similar to 1. Sim ple epsilon models of clustering evolution fit this result, with the best a greement for epsilon = 0. Hierarchical cold dark matter models best fit in a low-density, Lambda -dominated universe.