We measure the luminosity and color dependence of galaxy clustering in the largest-ever galaxy redshift survey, the main galaxy sample of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Seventh Data Release (DR7). We focus on the projected correlation function w p (r p ) of volume-limited samples, extracted from the parent sample of ∼ 700, 000 galaxies over 8000 deg 2 , extending up to redshift of 0.25. We interpret our measurements using halo occupation distribution (HOD) modeling assuming a ΛCDM cosmology (inflationary cold dark matter with a cosmological constant). The amplitude of w p (r p ) grows slowly with luminosity for L < L * and increases sharply at higher luminosities, with a large-scale bias factor b(> L) × (σ 8 /0.8) = 1.06 + 0.21(L/L * ) 1.12 , where L is the sample luminosity threshold. At fixed luminosity, redder galaxies exhibit a higher amplitude and steeper correlation function, a steady trend that runs through the "blue cloud" and "green valley" and continues across the "red sequence." The cross-correlation of red and blue galaxies is close to the geometric mean of their autocorrelations, dropping slightly below at r p < 1 h −1 Mpc. The luminosity trends for the red and blue galaxy populations separately are strikingly different. Blue galaxies show a slow but steady increase of clustering strength with luminosity, with nearly constant shape of w p (r p ). The large-scale clustering of red galaxies shows little luminosity dependence until a sharp increase at L > 4L * , but the lowest luminosity red galaxies (0.04 − 0.25L * ) show very strong clustering on small scales (r p < 2 h −1 Mpc). Most of the observed trends can be naturally understood within the ΛCDM+HOD framework. The growth of w p (r p ) for higher luminosity galaxies reflects an overall shift in the mass scale of their host dark matter halos, in particular an increase in the minimum host halo mass M min . The mass at which a halo has, on average, one satellite galaxy brighter than L is M 1 ≈ 17M min (L) over most of the luminosity range, with a smaller ratio above L * . The growth and steepening of w p (r p ) for redder galaxies reflects the increasing fraction of galaxies that are satellite systems in high mass halos instead of central systems in low mass halos, a trend that is especially marked at low luminosities. Our extensive measurements, provided in tabular form, will allow detailed tests of theoretical models of galaxy formation, a firm grounding of semi-empirical models of the galaxy population, and new constraints on cosmological parameters from combining real-space galaxy clustering with mass-sensitive statistics such as redshift-space distortions, cluster mass-to-light ratios, and galaxy-galaxy lensing.

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Using free-free emission measured in the Ka-band (26 − 40 GHz) for 10 star-forming regions in the nearby galaxy NGC 6946, including its starbursting nucleus, we compare a number of star formation rate (SFR) diagnostics that are typically considered to be unaffected by interstellar extinction. These diagnostics include non-thermal radio (i.e., 1.4 GHz), total infrared (IR; 8 − 1000 µm), and warm dust (i.e., 24 µm) emission, along with hybrid indicators that attempt to account for obscured and unobscured emission from star-forming regions including Hα + 24 µm and UV + IR measurements.The assumption is made that the 33 GHz free-free emission provides the most accurate measure of the current SFR. Among the extranuclear star-forming regions, the 24 µm, Hα + 24 µm and UV + IR SFR calibrations are in good agreement with the 33 GHz free-free SFRs. However, each of the SFR calibrations relying on some form of dust emission overestimate the nuclear SFR by a factor of ∼2 relative to the 33 GHz free-free SFR. This is more likely the result of excess dust heating through an accumulation of non-ionizing stars associated with an extended episode of star formation in the nucleus rather than increased competition for ionizing photons by dust. SFR calibrations using the non-thermal radio continuum yield values which only agree with the 33 GHz free-free SFRs for the nucleus, and underestimate the SFRs from the extranuclear star-forming regions by an average factor of ∼2 and ∼4−5 before and after subtracting local background emission, respectively. This result likely arises from the CR electrons decaying within the starburst region with negligible escape, whereas the transient nature of star formation in the young extranuclear star-forming complexes allows for CR electrons to diffuse significantly further than dust heating photons, resulting in an underestimate of the true SFR. Finally, we find that the SFRs estimated using the total 33 GHz flux density appear to agree well with those from using the free-free emission due to the large thermal fractions present at these frequencies even when local diffuse backgrounds are not removed. Thus, rest-frame 33 GHz observations may act as a reliable method to measure the SFRs of galaxies at increasingly high redshift without the need of ancillary radio data to account for the non-thermal emission.

We use SDSS+GALEX+Galaxy Zoo data to study the quenching of star formation in lowredshift galaxies. We show that the green valley between the blue cloud of star-forming galaxies and the red sequence of quiescent galaxies in the colour-mass diagram is not a single transitional state through which most blue galaxies evolve into red galaxies. Rather, an analysis that takes morphology into account makes clear that only a small population of blue earlytype galaxies move rapidly across the green valley after the morphologies are transformed from disk to spheroid and star formation is quenched rapidly. In contrast, the majority of blue star-forming galaxies have significant disks, and they retain their late-type morphologies as their star formation rates decline very slowly. We summarize a range of observations that lead to these conclusions, including UV-optical colours and halo masses, which both show a striking dependence on morphological type. We interpret these results in terms of the evolution of cosmic gas supply and gas reservoirs. We conclude that late-type galaxies are consistent with a scenario where the cosmic supply of gas is shut off, perhaps at a critical halo mass, followed by a slow exhaustion of the remaining gas over several Gyr, driven by secular and/or environmental processes. In contrast, early-type galaxies require a scenario where the gas supply and gas reservoir are destroyed virtually instantaneously, with rapid quenching accompanied by a morphological transformation from disk to spheroid. This gas reservoir destruction could be the consequence of a major merger, which in most cases transforms galaxies from disk to elliptical morphology, and mergers could play a role in inducing black hole accretion and possibly AGN feedback.

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey III (SDSS-III) presents the first spectroscopic data from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS). This ninth data release (DR9) of the SDSS project includes 535,995 new galaxy spectra (median z ∼ 0.52), 102,100 new quasar spectra (median z ∼ 2.32), and 90,897 new stellar spectra, along with the data presented in previous data releases. These spectra were obtained with the new BOSS spectrograph and were taken between 2009 December and 2011 July. In addition, the stellar parameters pipeline, which determines radial velocities, surface temperatures, surface gravities, and metallicities of stars, has been updated and refined with improvements in temperature estimates for stars with T eff < 5000 K and in metallicity estimates for stars with [Fe/H] > −0.5. DR9 includes new stellar parameters for all stars presented in DR8, including stars from SDSS-I and II, as well as those observed as part of the SDSS-III Sloan Extension for Galactic Understanding and Exploration-2 (SEGUE-2).