We measure the intrinsic relation between velocity dispersion ( \sigma ) and luminosity ( L ) for massive , luminous red galaxies ( LRGs ) at redshift z \sim 0.55 .
We achieve unprecedented precision by using a sample of 600,000 galaxies with spectra from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey ( BOSS ) of the third Sloan Digital Sky Survey ( SDSS-III ) , covering a range of stellar masses M _ { * } \gtrsim 10 ^ { 11 } M _ { \odot } .
We deconvolve the effects of photometric errors , limited spectroscopic signal-to-noise ratio , and red–blue galaxy confusion using a novel hierarchical Bayesian formalism that is generally applicable to any combination of photometric and spectroscopic observables .
For an L- \sigma relation of the form L \propto \sigma ^ { \beta } , we find \beta = 7.8 \pm 1.1 for \sigma corrected to the effective radius , and a very small intrinsic scatter of s = 0.047 \pm 0.004 in \log _ { 10 } \sigma at fixed L .
No significant redshift evolution is found for these parameters .
The evolution of the zero-point within the redshift range considered is consistent with the passive evolution of a galaxy population that formed at redshift z = 2 - 3 , assuming single stellar populations .
An analysis of previously reported results seems to indicate that the passively-evolved high-mass L- \sigma relation at z \sim 0.55 is consistent with the one measured at z = 0.1 .
Our results , in combination with those presented in ( ) , provide a detailed description of the high-mass end of the red sequence ( RS ) at z \sim 0.55 .
This characterization , in the light of previous literature , suggest that the high-mass RS distribution corresponds to the “ core ” elliptical population .