We investigate the dependence of the strength of galaxy clustering on intrinsic luminosity using the Anglo-Australian two degree field galaxy redshift survey ( 2dFGRS ) .
The 2dFGRS is over an order of magnitude larger than previous redshift surveys used to address this issue .
We measure the projected two-point correlation function of galaxies in a series of volume-limited samples .
The projected correlation function is free from any distortion of the clustering pattern induced by peculiar motions and is well described by a power-law in pair separation over the range 0.1 < ( r / h ^ { -1 } { Mpc } ) < 10 .
The clustering of L ^ { * } ( M _ { b _ { J } } -5 \log _ { 10 } h = -19.7 ) galaxies in real space is well fit by a correlation length r _ { 0 } = 4.9 \pm 0.3 h ^ { -1 } { Mpc } and power-law slope \gamma = 1.71 \pm 0.06 .
The clustering amplitude increases slowly with absolute magnitude for galaxies fainter than M ^ { * } , but rises more strongly at higher luminosities .
At low luminosities , our results agree with measurements from the SSRS2 by Benoist et al .
However , we find a weaker dependence of clustering strength on luminosity at the highest luminosities .
The correlation function amplitude increases by a factor of 4.0 between M _ { b _ { J } } -5 \log _ { 10 } h = -18 and -22.5 , and the most luminous galaxies are 3.0 times more strongly clustered than L ^ { * } galaxies .
The power-law slope of the correlation function shows remarkably little variation for samples spanning a factor of 20 in luminosity .
Our measurements are in very good agreement with the predictions of the hierarchical galaxy formation models of Benson et al .