Angular Clustering of Galaxies at 3.6 micron from the SWIRE survey

We present the first analysis of large-scale clustering from the Spitzer Wide-area InfraRed Extragalactic legacy survey: SWIRE. We compute the angular correlation function of galaxies selected to have 3.6 µ m fluxes brighter than 32 µ Jy in three fields totaling two square degrees in area. In each field we detect clustering with a high level of significance. The amplitude and slope of the correlation function is consistent between the three fields and is modeled as w ( θ ) = Aθ 1 − γ with A = (0 . 6 ± 0 . 3) × 10 − 3 , γ = 2 . 03 ± 0 . 10. With a fixed slope of γ = 1 . 8, we obtain an amplitude of A = (1 . 7 ± 0 . 1) × 10 − 3 . Assuming an equivalent depth of K ≈ 18 . 7 mag we find our errors are smaller but our results are consistent with existing clustering measurements in K -band surveys and with stable clustering models. We estimate our median redshift z ≃ 0 . 75 and this allows us to obtain an estimate of the three-dimensional correlation function ξ ( r ), for which we find r 0 = 4 . 4 ± 0 . 1 h − 1 Mpc.