Angular Clustering of Galaxies at 3.6 Microns from the Spitzer Wide-area Infrared Extragalactic (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 μm fluxes brighter than 32 μJy in three fields totaling 2 deg2 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) = Aθ1-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 that 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 r0 = 4.4 ± 0.1 h-1 Mpc.