Related papers: Does the Universe Have a Handedness?
Bars and spiral arms have played an important role as constraints on the dynamics and on the distribution of dark matter in the optical parts of disk galaxies. Dynamics linked to the dissipative nature of gas, and its transformation into…
Spirals in galaxies have long been thought to be caused by gravitational instability in the stellar component of the disk, but discerning the precise mechanism had proved elusive. Tidal interactions, and perhaps bars, may provoke some…
We investigate the visibility of galactic bars and spiral structure in the distant Universe by artificially redshifting 101 B-band CCD images of local spiral galaxies from the Ohio State University Bright Spiral Galaxy Survey. Our…
A complete map of the 3D distribution of molecular (CO) gas was constructed using a realistic dynamical model of the gas flow in the barred potential of the Milky Way. The map shows two prominent spiral arms starting at the bar ends…
The foundation of modern cosmology relies on the so-called cosmological principle which states an homogeneous and isotropic distribution of matter in the universe on large scales. However, recent observations, such as the temperature…
Galaxies are thought to grow through accretion; as less massive galaxies are disrupted and merge over time, their debris results in diffuse, clumpy stellar halos enveloping the central galaxy. Here we present a study of the variation in the…
We establish a dynamical mechanism to explain the origin of the asymmetry between the arms observed in some barred disk galaxies, where one of the two arms emanating from the bar ends is very well defined, while the second one displays a…
I critically discuss in a pedagogical and phenomenological way a few crucial tests challenging the claims by Pietronero and collaborators that there is no evidence from available galaxy catalogues that the Universe is actually homogeneous…
An asymmetry index is derived from ellipse-fitting to galaxy images, that gives weight to faint outer features and is not strongly redshift-dependent. These measures are made on a sample of 13 2MASS QSOs and their neighbour galaxies, and a…
It is well established that many galaxies, like our Milky Way, exhibit spiral patterns. The entire galactic disc rotates about the galactic centre with different speeds; higher closer to the centre, lower at greater distances - that is,…
We present a systematic observational study of the spin alignment between galaxy groups and their central galaxies using a large spectroscopic sample from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Unlike previous studies based on morphology or major…
Spiral arms play a central role in disc galaxies, but their dynamical nature remains a long-standing open question. Azimuthal offsets between molecular gas and star formation are expected if gas crosses spiral arms, as predicted by…
The galaxy bispectrum contains a wealth of information about the early universe, gravity, as well as astrophysics such as galaxy bias. In this paper, we study the parity-odd part of the galaxy bispectrum which is hitherto unexplored. In the…
In a large scale view of the universe, galaxies are the basic unit of structure. A typical bright galaxy may contain 100 billion stars and span tens of thousands of light years, but the empty expanses between the galaxies are much larger…
We use the fourth data release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey to investigate the orientations of 4289 satellite galaxies with respect to their hosts. The orientation of the satellites is inconsistent with a random distribution at the…
The Carnegie-Irvine Galaxy Survey provides high-quality broad-band optical images of a large sample of nearby galaxies for detailed study of their structure. To probe the physical nature and possible cosmological evolution of spiral arms, a…
It has been shown, both in simulations and observationally, that the tidal field of a large galaxy can torque its satellites such that the major axis of satellite galaxies points towards their hosts. This so-called `shape alignment' has…
Modern cosmology rests on the cosmological principle, that on large enough scales the Universe is both homogeneous and isotropic. A corollary is that galaxies' spin vectors should be isotropically distributed on the sky. This has been…
In this paper we study the morphological properties of spiral galaxies, including measurements of spiral arm number and pitch angle. Using Galaxy Zoo 2, a stellar mass-complete sample of 6,222 SDSS spiral galaxies is selected. We use the…
The assumption that the universe is homogeneous and isotropic on large scales is one of the fundamental postulates of cosmology. We have tested the large scale homogeneity of the galaxy distribution in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data…