The MUSE-Wide survey: Three-dimensional clustering analysis of Lyman-α emitters at 3.3 < z < 6

We present an analysis of the spatial clustering of 695 Lyα -emitting galaxies (LAEs) in the MUSE-Wide survey. All objects have spectroscopically confirmed redshifts in the range 3.3  pair ⟩ ≃ 3.82, while the best-fit power-law analysis gives ( comoving h −1 Mpc and ). The implied typical dark matter halo (DMH) mass is (adopting b  = b HOD and assuming σ 8  = 0.8). We study possible dependencies of the clustering signal on object properties by bisecting the sample into disjoint subsets, considering Lyα luminosity, UV absolute magnitude, Lyα equivalent width, and redshift as variables. We find no evidence for a strong dependence on the latter three variables but detect a suggestive trend of more luminous Lyα emitters clustering more strongly (thus residing in more massive DMHs) than their lower Lyα luminosity counterparts. We also compare our results to mock LAE catalogs based on a semi-analytic model of galaxy formation and find a stronger clustering signal than in our observed sample, driven by spikes in the simulated z -distributions. By adopting a galaxy-conserving model we estimate that the Lyα -bright galaxies in the MUSE-Wide survey will typically evolve into galaxies hosted by halos of log(M DMH /[h −1  M ⊙ ]) ≈ 13.5 at redshift zero, suggesting that we observe the ancestors of present-day galaxy groups.