200,000 elliptical galaxies aligned the same way

[bascule]

http://arxiv.org/abs/0708.4013

 

I have studied a sample of 200,000 elliptical galaxies with redshifts <0.20 from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) to investigate whether they tend to have their ellipticities aligned along a particular axis. The data show a 13 standard deviation signal for such an alignment. The axis is close to the spiral spin axis found previously and to that of the quadrupole and octopole moments in the WMAP microwave sky survey.

 

Interesting...

[insane_alien]

be more interesting if it was 42

 

is there any hypothesis to what causes this?

[Naturalist]

How straight is this straight line?

 

It would be more interesting if x amount of galaxies spelled out "Jesus is your savior." Uh, sorry, I guess this really doesn't contribute to the thread. I'm with insane alien: I want to know how this strange astronomical behavior is explained by astrophysicists. Hm, Michael J. Longo has posted up quite a few papers: http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Longo_M/0/1/0/all/0/1

[Martin]

I want to know how this strange astronomical behavior is explained by astrophysicists. Hm, Michael J. Longo has posted up quite a few papers: http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Longo_M/0/1/0/all/0/1

 

Naturalist, it certainly is a good idea to check as you did. Because you limited the field to "astro-ph", your arxiv search link gives only 5 papers, all apparently unpublished. They mention U. Mich affiliation but do not indicate status. So far, that is not too impressive.

 

But there is more to the story: M.J. Longo is a professor in the physics department at U. Mich. who has published over 300 hundred professional papers (mostly in collaboration with others).

 

Here is his personal webpage

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mlongo/

 

His specialty is experimental particle physics. AFAIK he has done little or nothing in cosmology until, nearing retirement age, he posted these 5 papers. to find other papers you can put in "hep-ex" instead of "astro-ph"----or use the SPIRES link he gives at his webpage.

 

So this is not possible to dismiss immediately. The guy has a UC Berkeley PhD and a long list of peerreview publication (as part of large teams experimentalist) and he made full professor at U.Mich etc. etc.

 

He has submitted at least one of those papers to Astrophysical Journal and so far no indication that it passed review. And these 5 papers are all solo work---no collaborators---none published. And on first sight very strange.