Higher order angular galaxy correlations in the SDSS: Redshift and color dependence of nonlinear bias

We present estimates of the N-point galaxy, area-averaged, angular correlation functions ω̄_N(θ) for N = 2, . . . , 7 for galaxies from the fifth data release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Our parent sample is selected from galaxies with 18 ≤ r ≤ 21 and is the largest ever used to study higher order correlations. We subdivide this parent sample into two volume-limited samples using photometric redshifts, and these two samples are further subdivided by magnitude, redshift, and color (producing early- and late-type galaxy samples) to determine the dependence of ω̄_N(θ) on luminosity, redshift, and galaxy type. We measure ω̄_N(θ) using oversampling techniques and use them to calculate the projected s_N. Using models derived from theoretical power spectra and perturbation theory, we measure the bias parameters b₁ and c₂, finding that the large differences in both bias parameters (b₁ and c₂) between early- and late-type galaxies are robust against changes in redshift, luminosity, and σ₈, and that both terms are consistently smaller for late-type galaxies. By directly comparing their higher order correlation measurements, we find large differences in the clustering of late-type galaxies at redshifts lower than 0.3 and those at redshifts higher than 0.3, both at large scales (c₂ is larger by ∼0.5 at z > 0.3) and small scales (large amplitudes are measured at small scales only for z > 0.3, suggesting much more merger-driven star formation at z > 0.3). Finally, our measurements of c₂ suggest both that σ₈ < 0.8 and that c ₂ is negative.