HIGH-ORDER GALAXY CORRELATION-FUNCTIONS IN THE APM GALAXY SURVEY

We estimate J-point galaxy-averaged correlation functions omega(J)BAR( theta) for J = 2, ..., 9, in a sample of the APM Galaxy Survey with mo re than 1.3 x 10(6) galaxies and a depth D approximately 400 h-1 Mpc. The hierarchical amplitudes s(J) = omega(J)BAR/omega2(J-1)BAR are roug hly constant, up to J = 9, between thetaD approximately 0.5 h-1 Mpc an d thetaD approximately 2 h-1 Mpc, and decrease slowly for larger scale s. At scales theta(D) > 7 h-1 Mpc, we find strong similarities between the statistical properties of the galaxy fluctuations delta(g) and th e theoretical properties of matter fluctuations delta(m) evolving unde r the influence of gravity in an expanding universe on the assumption that the initial fluctuations are small and Gaussian. This is most eas ily explained if at large scales there is no significant biasing betwe en matter and galaxy fluctuations, i.e. delta(g) congruent-to delta(m) . The comparison of the skewness in the CfA and SSRS catalogues with c omparable subsamples of the APM indicates that the volume of a 'fair s ample' has to be much larger than the one in the combined CfA/SSRS cat alogues.