Is the deficit of z > 1 field ellipticals real ?

Abstract

The results of a 700 arcmin^2 survey for EROs are presented. The sky distribution of EROs is very inhomogeneous and their two point correlation function shows a very high amplitude, a factor of 10 larger than that of the field galaxy population. Such a clustering can explain the strong variance found in previous works, and provides evidence that ERO are mostly made of high-z ellipticals. The surface density of EROs found in our large survey is in good agreement with that expected for passively evolving ellipticals formed at high redshift (z\simgt2.5).