The nature of galaxy spin is still not fully known. Iye, Yagi, and Fukumoto (2021, AJ, 907, 123) applied a 3D analysis to a dataset of bright SDSS galaxies that was used in the past for photometric analysis. They showed that the distribution of spin directions of spiral galaxies is random, providing a dipole axis with low statistical significance of 0.29σ. However, to show random distribution, two decisions were made, each of which can lead to random distribution regardless of the real distribution of the spin direction of galaxies. The first decision was to limit the dataset arbitrarily to z < 0.1, which is a redshift range in which previous literature already showed that random distribution is expected. More importantly, while the 3D analysis requires the redshift of each galaxy, the analysis was done with the photometric redshift. If the asymmetry existed, its signal is expected to be an order of magnitude weaker than the error of the photometric redshift, and therefore a low statistical signal under these conditions is expected. When using the exact same data without limiting to zphot < 0.1 and without using the photometric redshift, the distribution of the spin directions in that dataset showsmore »
Galaxy spin direction distribution in HST and SDSS show similar large-scale asymmetry
Abstract Several recent observations using large data sets of galaxies showed non-random distribution of the spin directions of spiral galaxies, even when the galaxies are too far from each other to have gravitational interaction. Here, a data set of $\sim8.7\cdot10^3$ spiral galaxies imaged by Hubble Space Telescope ( HST ) is used to test and profile a possible asymmetry between galaxy spin directions. The asymmetry between galaxies with opposite spin directions is compared to the asymmetry of galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. The two data sets contain different galaxies at different redshift ranges, and each data set was annotated using a different annotation method. The results show that both data sets show a similar asymmetry in the COSMOS field, which is covered by both telescopes. Fitting the asymmetry of the galaxies to cosine dependence shows a dipole axis with probabilities of $\sim2.8\sigma$ and $\sim7.38\sigma$ in HST and SDSS, respectively. The most likely dipole axis identified in the HST galaxies is at $(\alpha=78^{\rm o},\delta=47^{\rm o})$ and is well within the $1\sigma$ error range compared to the location of the most likely dipole axis in the SDSS galaxies with $z>0.15$ , identified at $(\alpha=71^{\rm o},\delta=61^{\rm o})$ .
- Award ID(s):
- 1903823
- Publication Date:
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10268493
- Journal Name:
- Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia
- Volume:
- 37
- ISSN:
- 1323-3580
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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Observations of non-random distribution of galaxies with opposite spin directions have recently attracted considerable attention. Here, a method for identifying cosine-dependence in a dataset of galaxies annotated by their spin directions is described in the light of different aspects that can impact the statistical analysis of the data. These aspects include the presence of duplicate objects in a dataset, errors in the galaxy annotation process, and non-random distribution of the asymmetry that does not necessarily form a dipole or quadrupole axes. The results show that duplicate objects in the dataset can artificially increase the likelihood of cosine dependence detected in the data, but a very high number of duplicate objects is required to lead to a false detection of an axis. Inaccuracy in galaxy annotations has relatively minor impact on the identification of cosine dependence when the error is randomly distributed between clockwise and counterclockwise galaxies. However, when the error is not random, even a small bias of 1% leads to a statistically significant cosine dependence that peaks at the celestial pole. Experiments with artificial datasets in which the distribution was not random showed strong cosine dependence even when the data did not form a full dipole axis alignment. Themore »
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Publisher's Version of Record
- https://doi.org/10.1017/pasa.2020.46
