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

Alpaslan, M.; Robotham, A.S.G.; Obreschkow, D.; Penny, S.; Driver, S.; Norberg, P.; Brough, S.; Brown, M.; Cluver, M.; Holwerda, B.; Hopkins, A.M.; van Kampen, E.; Kelvin, L.S.; Lara-Lopez, M.A.; Liske, J.; Loveday, J.; Mahajan, S.; Pimbblet, K.

doi:10.1093/mnrasl/slu019

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

Alpaslan, M.; Robotham, A.S.G.; Obreschkow, D.; Penny, S.; Driver, S.; Norberg, P.; Brough, S.; Brown, M.; Cluver, M.; Holwerda, B.; Hopkins, A.M.; van Kampen, E.; Kelvin, L.S.; Lara-Lopez, M.A.; Liske, J.; Loveday, J.; Mahajan, S.; Pimbblet, K.

Authors

M. Alpaslan

A.S.G. Robotham

D. Obreschkow

S. Penny

S. Driver

Professor Peder Norberg peder.norberg@durham.ac.uk
Professor

S. Brough

M. Brown

M. Cluver

B. Holwerda

A.M. Hopkins

E. van Kampen

L.S. Kelvin

M.A. Lara-Lopez

J. Liske

J. Loveday

S. Mahajan

K. Pimbblet

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., Obreschkow, D., Penny, S., Driver, S., Norberg, P., …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
Publication Date	May 1, 2014
Deposit Date	Jun 3, 2014
Publicly Available Date	Jun 5, 2014
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.

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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.