No evidence for anisotropy in galaxy spin directions
Dhruva Patel, Harry Desmond
arXiv:2404.06617v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: Modern cosmology rests on the cosmological principle, that on large enough scales the Universe is both homogeneous and isotropic. A corollary is that galaxies’ spin vectors should be isotropically distributed on the sky. This has been challenged by multiple authors for over a decade, with claims to have detected a statistically significant dipole pattern of spins. We collect all publicly available datasets with spin classifications (binary clockwise/anticlockwise), and analyse them for large-angle anisotropies ($ell le 2$). We perform each inference in both a Bayesian and frequentist fashion, the former establishing posterior probabilities on the multipole parameters and the latter calculating $p$-values for rejection of the null hypothesis of isotropy (i.e. no power at $ell>0$). All analysis indicate consistency with isotropy to within $3sigma$. We isolate the differences with contrary claims in the ad hoc or biased statistics that they employ.arXiv:2404.06617v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: Modern cosmology rests on the cosmological principle, that on large enough scales the Universe is both homogeneous and isotropic. A corollary is that galaxies’ spin vectors should be isotropically distributed on the sky. This has been challenged by multiple authors for over a decade, with claims to have detected a statistically significant dipole pattern of spins. We collect all publicly available datasets with spin classifications (binary clockwise/anticlockwise), and analyse them for large-angle anisotropies ($ell le 2$). We perform each inference in both a Bayesian and frequentist fashion, the former establishing posterior probabilities on the multipole parameters and the latter calculating $p$-values for rejection of the null hypothesis of isotropy (i.e. no power at $ell>0$). All analysis indicate consistency with isotropy to within $3sigma$. We isolate the differences with contrary claims in the ad hoc or biased statistics that they employ.