The clustering of galaxies in the SDSS-III Baryon Oscillation
  Spectroscopic Survey: Luminosity and Color Dependence and Redshift Evolution
  We measure the luminosity and color dependence and the redshift evolution of
galaxy clustering in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey-III Baryon Oscillation
Spectroscopic Survey Ninth Data Release. We focus on the projected two-point
correlation function (2PCF) of subsets of its CMASS sample, which includes
about 260,000 galaxies over ~3,300 sq. deg in the redshift range 0.43<z<0.7. To
minimize the selection effect on galaxy clustering, we construct well-defined
luminosity and color subsamples by carefully accounting for the CMASS galaxy
selection cuts. The 2PCF of the whole CMASS sample, if approximated by a
power-law, has a correlation length of r_0=7.93\pm0.06Mpc/h and an index of
\gamma=1.85\pm0.01. Clear dependences on galaxy luminosity and color are found
for the projected 2PCF in all redshift bins, with more luminous and redder
galaxies generally exhibiting stronger clustering and steeper 2PCF. The color
dependence is also clearly seen for galaxies within the red sequence,
consistent with the behavior of SDSS-II main sample galaxies at lower
redshifts. At a given luminosity (k+e corrected), no significant evolution of
the projected 2PCFs with redshift is detected for red sequence galaxies. We
also construct galaxy samples of fixed number density at different redshifts,
using redshift-dependent magnitude thresholds. The clustering of these galaxies
in the CMASS redshift range is found to be consistent with that predicted by
passive evolution. Our measurements of the luminosity and color dependence and
redshift evolution of galaxy clustering will allow for detailed modeling of the
relation between galaxies and dark matter halos and new constraints on galaxy
formation and evolution.
