2023/10/31 by Strey, Sophia-Gisela, Castronovo, Alexander, Elumalai, Kailash
Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Chemical Physics Studies #Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA) #FOS: Physical sciences
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2310.20184
openalex publication_date 2023/10/31 · openalex created_date 2023/11/02 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Numerical simulations and observations show that galaxies are not uniformly distributed. In cosmology, the largest known structures in the universe are galaxy filaments formed from the hierarchical clustering of galaxies due to gravitational forces. These structures consist of walls and bridges that connect clusters. Here, we use graph theory to model the structures as Euclidean networks in three-dimensional space. Using percolation theory, cosmological graphs are reduced based on the valency of nodes to reveal the inner, most robust structural formation. By constraining the network, we then find thresholds for physical features, such as length-scale and density, at which galaxy filament clusters are identified.