We present measurements of the angular correlation function of sub-millimeter ( sub-mm ) galaxies ( SMGs ) identified in four out of the five fields of the Herschel Astrophysical Terahertz Large Area Survey ( H-ATLAS ) - GAMA-9h , GAMA-12h , GAMA-15h and NGP - with flux densities S _ { 250 \mu m } > 30 mJy at 250 \mu m. We show that galaxies selected at this wavelength trace the underlying matter distribution differently at low and high redshifts .
We study the evolution of the clustering finding that at low redshifts sub-mm galaxies exhibit clustering strengths of r _ { 0 } \sim 2 - 3 h ^ { -1 } Mpc , below z < 0.3 .
At high redshifts , on the other hand , we find that sub-mm galaxies are more strongly clustered with correlation lengths r _ { 0 } = 8.1 \pm 0.5 , 8.8 \pm 0.8 and 13.9 \pm 3.9 h ^ { -1 } Mpc at z = 1 - 2 , 2 - 3 and 3 - 5 , respectively .
We show that sub-mm galaxies across the redshift range 1 < z < 5 , typically reside in dark-matter halos of mass of the order of \sim 10 ^ { 12.5 } -10 ^ { 13.0 } h ^ { -1 } M _ { \odot } and are consistent with being the progenitors of local massive elliptical galaxies that we see in the local Universe .