THE CLUSTERING OF EXTREMELY RED OBJECTS

We measure the clustering of extremely red objects (EROs) in Almost-Equal-To 8 deg{sup 2} of the NOAO Deep Wide Field Survey Booetes field in order to establish robust links between ERO (z Almost-Equal-To 1.2) and local galaxy (z 5.0 (28, 724 galaxies), (I - K{sub s} ) > 4.0 (22, 451 galaxies), and (I - [3.6]) > 5.0 (64, 370 galaxies). Magnitude-limited samples show the correlation length (r {sub 0}) to increase for more luminous EROs, implying a correlation with stellar mass. We can separate star-forming and passive ERO populations using the (K{sub s} - [24]) and ([3.6] - [24]) colors to K{sub s} = 18.4 and [3.6] = 17.5, respectively. Star-forming and passive EROs in magnitude-limited samples have different clustering properties and host dark halo masses and cannot be simply understood as a single population. Based on the clustering, we find that bright passive EROs are the likely progenitors of {approx}> 4L* elliptical galaxies. Bright EROs with ongoing star formation were found to occupy densermore » environments than star-forming galaxies in the local universe, making these the likely progenitors of {approx}> L* local ellipticals. This suggests that the progenitors of massive {approx}> 4L* local ellipticals had stopped forming stars by z {approx}> 1.2, but that the progenitors of less massive ellipticals (down to L*) can still show significant star formation at this epoch.« less