English

The Local Group in the cosmic web

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics 2015-06-22 v2 Astrophysics of Galaxies

Abstract

We explore the characteristics of the cosmic web around Local Group(LG) like pairs using a cosmological simulation in the Λ\LambdaCDM cosmology. We use the Hessian of the gravitational potential to classify regions on scales of 2\sim 2 Mpc as a peak, sheet, filament or void. The sample of LG counterparts is represented by two samples of halo pairs. The first is a general sample composed by pairs with similar masses and isolation criteria as observed for the LG. The second is a subset with additional observed kinematic constraints such as relative pair velocity and separation. We find that the pairs in the LG sample with all constraints are: (i) Preferentially located in filaments and sheets, (ii) Located in in a narrow range of local overdensity 0<δ<20<\delta<2, web ellipticity 0.1<e<1.00.1<e<1.0 and prolateness 0.4<p<0.4-0.4<p<0.4. (iii) Strongly aligned with the cosmic web. The alignments are such that the pair orbital angular momentum tends to be perpendicular to the smallest tidal eigenvector, e^3\hat{e}_3, which lies along the filament direction or the sheet plane. A stronger alignment is present for the vector linking the two halos with the vector e^3\hat{e}_3. Additionally, we fail to find a strong correlation of the spin of each halo in the pair with the cosmic web. All these trends are expected to a great extent from the selection on the LG total mass on the general sample. Applied to the observed LG, there is a potential conflict between the alignments of the different planes of satellites and the numerical evidence for satellite accretion along filaments; the direction defined by e^3\hat{e}_3. This highlights the relevance of achieving a precise characterization of the place of the LG in the cosmic web in the cosmological context provided by Λ\LambdaCDM.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1408.3166,
  title  = {The Local Group in the cosmic web},
  author = {Jaime E. Forero-Romero and Roberto E. Gonzalez},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1408.3166},
  year   = {2015}
}

Comments

8 pages, 6 figures, ApJ accepted

R2 v1 2026-06-22T05:28:27.155Z