scholarly journals How complex is the cosmic web?

2019 ◽  
Vol 491 (4) ◽  
pp. 5447-5463 ◽  
Author(s):  
F Vazza

ABSTRACT The growth of large-scale cosmic structure is a beautiful exemplification of how complexity can emerge in our Universe, starting from simple initial conditions and simple physical laws. Using enzo cosmological numerical simulations, I applied tools from Information Theory (namely, ‘statistical complexity’) to quantify the amount of complexity in the simulated cosmic volume, as a function of cosmic epoch and environment. This analysis can quantify how much difficult to predict, at least in a statistical sense, is the evolution of the thermal, kinetic, and magnetic energy of the dominant component of ordinary matter in the Universe (the intragalactic medium plasma). The most complex environment in the simulated cosmic web is generally found to be the periphery of large-scale structures (e.g. galaxy clusters and filaments), where the complexity is on average ∼10–102 times larger than in more rarefied regions, even if the latter dominate the volume-integrated complexity of the simulated Universe. If the energy evolution of gas in the cosmic web is measured on a ≈100 ${\rm kpc}\, h^{-1}$ resolution and over a ≈200 $\rm Myr$ time-scale, its total complexity is in the range of $\sim 10^{16}\!-\!10^{17} \rm \,bits$, with little dependence on the assumed gas physics, cosmology, or cosmic variance.

1987 ◽  
Vol 124 ◽  
pp. 335-348
Author(s):  
Neta A. Bahcall

The evidence for the existence of very large scale structures, ∼ 100h−1Mpc in size, as derived from the spatial distribution of clusters of galaxies is summarized. Detection of a ∼ 2000 kms−1 elongation in the redshift direction in the distribution of the clusters is also described. Possible causes of the effect are peculiar velocities of clusters on scales of 10–100h−1Mpc and geometrical elongation of superclusters. If the effect is entirely due to the peculiar velocities of clusters, then superclusters have masses of order 1016.5M⊙ and may contain a larger amount of dark matter than previously anticipated.


1994 ◽  
Vol 5 (1-4) ◽  
pp. 75-79 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. A. Pustil'nik ◽  
A. V. Ugryumov ◽  
V. A. Lipovetsky

2002 ◽  
Vol 168-169 ◽  
pp. 404-409 ◽  
Author(s):  
F.M Ramos ◽  
C.A Wuensche ◽  
A.L.B Ribeiro ◽  
R.R Rosa

2018 ◽  
Vol 27 (15) ◽  
pp. 1848005 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine Heymans ◽  
Gong-Bo Zhao

Observations of the evolution of large-scale structures in the Universe provides unique tools to confront Einstein’s theory of General Relativity on cosmological scales. We review weak gravitational lensing and galaxy clustering studies, discussing how these can be used in combination in order to constrain a range of different modified gravity theories. We argue that in order to maximise the future information gain from these probes, theoretical effort will be required in order to model the impact of beyond-Einstein gravity in the nonlinear regime of structure formation.


2020 ◽  
Vol 634 ◽  
pp. A81
Author(s):  
V. Bonjean

The Planck collaboration has extensively used the six Planck HFI frequency maps to detect the Sunyaev–Zel’dovich (SZ) effect with dedicated methods, for example by applying (i) component separation to construct a full-sky map of the y parameter or (ii) matched multi-filters to detect galaxy clusters via their hot gas. Although powerful, these methods may still introduce biases in the detection of the sources or in the reconstruction of the SZ signal due to prior knowledge (e.g. the use of the generalised Navarro, Frenk, and White profile model as a proxy for the shape of galaxy clusters, which is accurate on average but not for individual clusters). In this study, we use deep learning algorithms, more specifically, a U-net architecture network, to detect the SZ signal from the Planck HFI frequency maps. The U-net shows very good performance, recovering the Planck clusters in a test area. In the full sky, Planck clusters are also recovered, together with more than 18 000 other potential SZ sources for which we have statistical indications of galaxy cluster signatures, by stacking at their positions several full-sky maps at different wavelengths (i.e. the cosmic microwave background lensing map from Planck, maps of galaxy over-densities, and the ROSAT X-ray map). The diffuse SZ emission is also recovered around known large-scale structures such as Shapley, A399–A401, Coma, and Leo. Results shown in this proof-of-concept study are promising for potential future detection of galaxy clusters with low SZ pressure with this kind of approach, and more generally, for potential identification and characterisation of large-scale structures of the Universe via their hot gas.


1998 ◽  
Vol 188 ◽  
pp. 177-180
Author(s):  
M. Pierre

The formation of Large Scale Structures (LSS) in the universe was first studied at optical wavelengths as the galaxy spatial distribution appeared to be far from homogeneous. Considerable effort has been invested in semi-analytical approaches and in numerical simulations (DM + hot gas) to explain the observed structures, given some set of initial conditions and using additional constraints provided by the COBE results. It is now clear however, that these two extreme data set are not sufficient to discriminate between the possible remaining cosmological scenarios. It is thus timely to investigate LSS at a much higher redshift than the present survey limits both in the optical and in other wavebands. In this context, the X-ray band will certainly become a hot field with the advent of the XMM observatory. The next section briefly summarizes what is known about LSS from optical wavelengths and simulations. Sect. 3 reviews the particular points that can be addressed in the X-ray band. Last section presents realistic prospects for mapping LSS with XMM.


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