We studied the clustering properties and multiwavelength spectral energy distributions of a complete sample of 162 Ly \alpha -emitting ( LAE ) galaxies at z \simeq 3.1 discovered in deep narrow-band MUSYC imaging of the Extended Chandra Deep Field South .
LAEs were selected to have observed frame equivalent widths > 80Å and emission line fluxes > 1.5 \times 10 ^ { -17 } ergs cm ^ { -2 } s ^ { -1 } .
Only 1 % of our LAE sample appears to host AGN .
The LAEs exhibit a moderate spatial correlation length of r _ { 0 } = 3.6 ^ { +0.8 } _ { -1.0 } Mpc , corresponding to a bias factor b = 1.7 ^ { +0.3 } _ { -0.4 } , which implies median dark matter halo masses of \log _ { 10 } \mathrm { M _ { med } } = 10.9 ^ { +0.5 } _ { -0.9 } M _ { \odot } .
Comparing the number density of LAEs , 1.5 \pm 0.3 \times 10 ^ { -3 } Mpc ^ { -3 } , with the number density of these halos finds a mean halo occupation \sim 1–10 % .
The evolution of galaxy bias with redshift implies that most z = 3.1 LAEs evolve into present-day galaxies with L < 2.5 L ^ { * } , whereas other z > 3 galaxy populations typically evolve into more massive galaxies .
Halo merger trees show that z = 0 descendants occupy halos with a wide range of masses , with a median descendant mass close to that of L ^ { * } .
Only 30 % of LAEs have sufficient stellar mass ( > \sim 3 \times 10 ^ { 9 } M _ { \odot } ) to yield detections in deep Spitzer-IRAC imaging .
A two-population SED fit to the stacked UBVRIzJK + [ 3.6,4.5,5.6,8.0 ] \mu m fluxes of the IRAC-undetected objects finds that the typical LAE has low stellar mass ( 1.0 ^ { +0.6 } _ { -0.4 } \times 10 ^ { 9 } M _ { \odot } ) , moderate star formation rate ( 2 \pm 1 M _ { \odot } yr ^ { -1 } ) , a young component age of 20 ^ { +30 } _ { -10 } Myr , and little dust ( A _ { V } < 0.2 ) .
The best fit model has 20 % of the mass in the young stellar component , but models without evolved stars are also allowed .