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Astrophysics > Astrophysics of Galaxies

Title: No evidence for anisotropy in galaxy spin directions

Abstract: 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 challenged by multiple authors for over a decade, with claims to have detected a statistically significant dipole pattern of spins. We collect all publicly available datasets with spin classifications (binary clockwise/anticlockwise), and analyse them for large-angle anisotropies ($\ell \le 2$). We perform each inference in both a Bayesian and frequentist fashion, the former establishing posterior probabilities on the multipole parameters and the latter calculating $p$-values for rejection of the null hypothesis of isotropy (i.e. no power at $\ell>0$). All analysis indicate consistency with isotropy to within $3\sigma$. We isolate the differences with contrary claims in the ad hoc or biased statistics that they employ.
Comments: 7 pages, 6 figures
Subjects: Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA); Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO)
Cite as: arXiv:2404.06617 [astro-ph.GA]
  (or arXiv:2404.06617v1 [astro-ph.GA] for this version)

Submission history

From: Dhruva Patel [view email]
[v1] Tue, 9 Apr 2024 21:07:41 GMT (554kb,D)

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