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An observed correlation between galaxy spins and initial conditions

Nature Astronomy volume 5, pages 283–288 (2021)Cite this article

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An Author Correction to this article was published on 08 March 2021

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Abstract

The directions of the galaxy angular momenta can be predicted from the initial conditions of the early Universe through the tidal torque. In simulations, these directions are well preserved through cosmic time, consistent with expectations of angular momentum conservation. We find evidence, statistically significant at ~2.7σ, of correlation between observed oriented directions of galaxy angular momentum vectors and their predictions based on the initial density field reconstructed from the positions of Sloan Digital Sky Survey galaxies. This study presents evidence for a correlation between directions of galaxy angular momenta and cosmic initial conditions, and opens a way to use measurements of galaxy spins to probe fundamental physics in the early Universe.

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Fig. 1: Origin of the galaxy spin.
Fig. 2: Components of galaxy spin.
Fig. 3: Excess of galaxies in bins of cos θRg.
Fig. 4: Detected correlation strength μRg as a function of the smoothing scale r.
Fig. 5: Significance of the detection, as a function of the GZ classification threshold \({\mathcal{T}}\).

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Data availability

Most of the data used in this work is public and can be obtained from https://skyserver.sdss.org/CasJobs/, https://datacentral.org.au/services/download/ and through Marvin (https://www.sdss.org/dr15/manga/marvin/). The resulting catalogue of galaxy spins as measured from data and as reconstructed from the ELUCID initial conditions (for three different smoothing scales) can be downloaded from https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4451358. The source data for Figs. 3–5 can be obtained at the same address.

Code availability

The codes used in this study are available from the corresponding authors upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

We thank H. Wang for providing the catalogue of ELUCID galaxy groups and useful discussions. We thank C. Pichon and M. Neyrinck for numerous very useful suggestions during the peer review process. We thank J. Dubinski for proofreading our manuscript and useful comments. P.M., H.-R.Y. and U.-L.P. were supported by Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) grant CITA 490888. H.-R.Y. additionally acknowledges support from National Natural Science Foundation of China grant 11903021. U.-L.P. received additional support from Ontario Research Fund-research Excellence Program grant RE09-024, NSERC grants RGPIN-2019-067, 523638-201, CRDPJ 523638-2, Canadian Institute for Advanced Research grants FS21-146 and APPT, Canadian Foundation for Innovation grant IOF-33526, Simons Foundation grant 568354, Thoth Technology Inc., and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

    Pavel Motloch, Ue-Li Pen & Yuanbo Xie

  2. Department of Astronomy, Xiamen University, Xiamen, Fujian, China

    Hao-Ran Yu

  3. Tsung-Dao Lee Institute, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China

    Ue-Li Pen

  4. Dunlap Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

    Ue-Li Pen

  5. Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, CIFAR Program in Gravitation and Cosmology, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

    Ue-Li Pen

  6. Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada

    Ue-Li Pen

  7. Department of Astronomy, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China

    Yuanbo Xie

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Contributions

All authors contributed to the work presented in this paper. U.-L.P., P.M. and H.-R.Y. initiated the project. H.-R.Y. and P.M. wrote the computer codes used in the study. P.M. and Y.X. analysed the data. P.M., H.-R.Y. and U.-L.P. wrote the manuscript. All authors participated in scientific discussions that determined the course of the project and influenced the final contents and scope of this manuscript.

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Correspondence to Pavel Motloch or Hao-Ran Yu.

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Peer review information Nature Astronomy thanks Mark Neyrinck, Rien van de Weijgaert and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Motloch, P., Yu, HR., Pen, UL. et al. An observed correlation between galaxy spins and initial conditions. Nat Astron 5, 283–288 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-020-01262-3

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