2021/03/25 by K. Migkas, F. Pacaud, Gerrit Schellenberger +7
Physics and Astronomy · #Anisotropy #Astrophysics #Astrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena #Cluster (spacecraft) #Cosmic microwave background #Cosmological principle #Cosmology #Dark energy #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena #Galaxy #Galaxy cluster #Gamma-ray bursts and supernovae #Geometry #Isotropy #Metric expansion of space #Physics #Quantum mechanics #Redshift #Scaling #Statistical physics #Structure formation #Universe #astro-ph.CO
paper · pdf · doi:10.1051/0004-6361/202140296
published as A&A 649, A151 (2021) · Accepted in A&A (29 pages and 13 plots, plus Appendix)
arxiv created 2021/03/25 · openalex publication_date 2021/04/15 · arxiv updated 2021/06/02 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/06
The hypothesis that the late Universe is isotropic and homogeneous is adopted by most cosmological studies, including studies of galaxy clusters. The cosmic expansion rate H 0 is thought to be spatially constant, while bulk flows are often presumed to be negligible compared to the Hubble expansion, even at local scales. The effects of bulk flows on the redshift–distance conversion are hence usually ignored. Any deviation from this consensus can strongly bias the results of such studies, and thus the importance of testing these assumptions cannot be understated. Scaling relations of galaxy clusters can be effectively used for this testing. In previous works, we observed strong anisotropies in cluster scaling relations, whose origins remain ambiguous. By measuring many different cluster properties, several scaling relations with different sensitivities can be built. Nearly independent tests of cosmic isotropy and large bulk flows are then feasible. In this work, we make use of up to 570 clusters with measured properties at X-ray, microwave, and infrared wavelengths to construct ten different cluster scaling relations and test the isotropy of the local Universe; to our knowedge, we present five of these scaling relations for the first time. Through rigorous and robust tests, we ensure that our analysis is not prone to generally known systematic biases and X-ray absorption issues. By combining all available information, we detect an apparent 9% spatial variation in the local H 0 between ( l , b )∼(280° −35° +35° , −15° −20° +20° ) and the rest of the sky. The observed anisotropy has a nearly dipole form. Using isotropic Monte Carlo simulations, we assess the statistical significance of the anisotropy to be > 5 σ . This result could also be attributed to a ∼900 km s −1 bulk flow, which seems to extend out to at least ∼500 Mpc. These two effects will be indistinguishable until more high- z clusters are observed by future all-sky surveys such as eROSITA.