Galaxy and Mass Assembly (GAMA) : fine filaments of galaxies detected within voids

Alpaslan, Mehmet; Robotham, Aaron S.G.; Obreschkow, Danail; Penny, Samantha; Driver, Simon; Norberg, Peder; Brough, Sarah; Brown, Michael; Cluver, Michelle; Holwerda, Benne Willem; Hopkins, Andrew M.; van Kampen, Eelco; Kelvin, Lee S.; Lara-Lopez, Maritza A.; Liske, Jochen; Loveday, Jon; Mahajan, Smriti; Pimbblet, Kevin

Abstract

Based on data from the Galaxy and Mass Assembly (GAMA) survey, we report on the discovery of structures that we refer to as ‘tendrils’ of galaxies: coherent, thin chains of galaxies that are rooted in filaments and terminate in neighbouring filaments or voids. On average, tendrils contain six galaxies and span 10 h¯¹ Mpc. We use the so-called line correlation function to prove that tendrils represent real structures rather than accidental alignments. We show that voids found in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, 7th data release survey that overlap with GAMA regions contain a large number of galaxies, primarily belonging to tendrils. This implies that void sizes are strongly dependent on the number density and sensitivity limits of a survey. We caution that galaxies in low-density regions, which may be defined as ‘void galaxies,’ will have local galaxy number densities that depend on such observational limits and are likely higher than those can be directly measured.

Citation

Alpaslan, M., Robotham, A. S., Obreschkow, D., Penny, S., Driver, S., Norberg, P., Brough, S., Brown, M., Cluver, M., Holwerda, B. W., Hopkins, A. M., van Kampen, E., Kelvin, L. S., Lara-Lopez, M. A., Liske, J., Loveday, J., Mahajan, S., & Pimbblet, K. (2014). Galaxy and Mass Assembly (GAMA) : fine filaments of galaxies detected within voids. Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Letters, 440(1), L106-L110. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnrasl/slu019

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jan 27, 2014
• Online Publication Date: Mar 4, 2014
• Publication Date: May 1, 2014
• Deposit Date: Jun 16, 2015
• Publicly Available Date: Jun 16, 2015
• Journal: Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Letters
• Electronic ISSN: 1745-3933
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 440
• Issue: 1
• Pages: L106-L110
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/mnrasl/slu019
• Keywords: Methods -- data analysis, Surveys, Large-scale structure of Universe
• Public URL: https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/375229
• Publisher URL: http://mnrasl.oxfordjournals.org/content/440/1/L106.abstract?sid=6aa90e21-0d1b-4ebc-80d9-c00a3f4c92d8
• Additional Information: This article has been accepted for publication in Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Letters ©: 2014 The Authors. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.
• Contract Date: Jun 16, 2015