12/25/2014

UCR Today: Its Filamentary: How Galaxies Evolve in the Cosmic Web

Its Filamentary: How Galaxies Evolve in the Cosmic Web

UC Riverside-led team proposes that filaments in the cosmic web played a critical role in
the distant universe
By Iqbal Pittalwala On NOVEMBER 20, 2014

RIVERSIDE, Calif. How do galaxies like our Milky Way form, and just
how do they evolve? Are galaxies affected by their surrounding
environment? An international team of researchers, led by astronomers
at the University of California, Riverside, proposes some answers.
The researchers highlight the role of the cosmic web a large-scale
web-like structure comprised of galaxies on the evolution of galaxies
that took place in the distant universe, a few billion years after the Big
Bang. In their paper, published Nov. 20 in the Astrophysical Journal,
they present observations showing that thread-like filaments in the
cosmic web played an important role in this evolution.

Galaxies are distributed along a cosmic web

in the universe. Mpc/h is a unit of galactic
distance (1 Mpc/h is more than 3.2 million
light-years).
IMAGE CREDIT: VOLKER SPRINGEL, VIRGO CONSORTIUM.

We think the cosmic web, dominated by dark matter, formed very early
in the history of the universe, starting with small initial fluctuations in the
primordial universe, said Behnam Darvish, a Ph.D. graduate student in
the Department of Physics and Astronomy at UC Riverside, who led the
research project and is the first author on the paper. Such a skeletal
universe must have played, in principle, a role in galaxy formation and
evolution, but this was incredibly hard to study and understand until
recently.

The distribution of galaxies and matter in the universe is non-random.

Galaxies are organized, even today, in a manner resembling an enormous network the cosmic web. This web has dense
regions made up of galaxy clusters and groups, sparsely populated regions devoid of galaxies, as well as the filaments that link
overdense regions.
The filaments are like bridges connecting the denser regions in the cosmic web, Darvish explained. Imagine threads woven
into the web.
Videos showing structures in the cosmic web:
http://www.mpa-garching.mpg.de/galform/data_vis/millennium_sim_1024x768.avi [Credit: Springel et al. (Virgo Consortium)]
http://vimeo.com/36095013 [Credit: Miguel Aragon-Calvo]
http://www.mpa-garching.mpg.de/galform/data_vis/g696_mpeg4.avi [Credit: Klaus Dolag]
http://www.mpa-garching.mpg.de/galform/data_vis/g696_fast_mpeg4.avi [Credit: Klaus Dolag]

It is well known in astronomy that galaxies residing in less dense regions have higher probability of actively forming stars (much
like our Milky Way), while galaxies in denser regions form stars at a much lower rate.
But the role of intermediate environments and, in particular, the role of filaments and the cosmic web in the early universe
remained, until very recently, a mystery, said coauthor Bahram Mobasher, a professor of physics and astronomy at UCR and
Darvishs adviser.
http://ucrtoday.ucr.edu/25894

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12/25/2014

UCR Today: Its Filamentary: How Galaxies Evolve in the Cosmic Web

What greatly assisted the researchers is a giant section of the cosmic web
first revealed in two big cosmological surveys (COSMOS and HiZELS). They
proceeded to explore data also from several telescopes (Hubble, VLT, UKIRT
and Subaru). They then applied a new computational method to identify the
filaments, which, in turn, helped them study the role of the cosmic web.
They found that galaxies residing in the cosmic web/filaments have a much
higher chance of actively forming stars. In other words, in the distant
universe, galaxy evolution seems to have been accelerated in the filaments.
It is possible that such filaments pre-process galaxies, accelerating their
evolution while also funneling them towards clusters, where they are fully
processed by the dense environment of clusters and likely end up as dead
galaxies, Darvish said. Our results also show that such
enhancement/acceleration is likely due to galaxy-galaxy interactions in the
filaments.
Because of the complexities involved in quantifying the cosmic web,
astronomers usually limit the study of the cosmic web to numerical
simulations and observations in our local universe. However, in this new
study, the researchers focused their work on the distant universe when the
universe was approximately half its present age.

Behnam Darvish (left) and Bahram

Mobasher are astronomers in the
Department of Physics and Astronomy at UC
Riverside.
PHOTO CREDIT: UC RIVERSIDE.

We were surprised by the crucial role the filaments play in galaxy formation
and evolution, Mobasher said. Star formation is enhanced in them. The
filaments likely increase the chance of gravitational interaction between
galaxies, which, in turn, results in this star-formation enhancement. There is evidence in our local universe that this process in
filaments also continues to occur at the present time.
Darvish and Mobasher were joined in this research by L. V. Sales at UCR; David Sobral at the Universidade de Lisboa,
Portugal; N. Z. Scoville at the California Institute of Technology; P. Best at the Royal Observatory of Ediburgh, United Kingdom;
and I. Smail at Durham University, United Kingdom.
Next, the team plans to extend this study to other epochs in the age of the universe to study the role of the cosmic web/filaments
in galaxy formation and evolution across cosmic time.
This will be a fundamental piece of the puzzle in order to understand how galaxies form and evolve as a whole, Sobral said.
The UCR researchers were supported in the study by a grant to Mobasher from NASA through the Space Telescope Science
Institute.
MEDIA CONTACT

RELATED LINKS

Iqbal Pittalwala
Tel: (951) 827-6050
E-mail: iqbal@ucr.edu
Twitter: UCR_Sciencenews

Department of Physics and Astronomy

Research paper

ADDITIONAL CONTACTS

Behnam Darvish
E-mail: bdarv001@ucr.edu
Bahram Mobasher
Tel: 951 827 7190
E-mail: mobasher@ucr.edu

ARCHIVED UNDER: Science/Technology, Bahram Mobasher, Behnam Darvish, CNAS, College Of Natural And Agricultural Sciences,
Cosmic Web, Cosmology, Department Of Physics And Astronomy, Galaxies, Galaxy, Galaxy Evolution, Galaxy Formation, Press
http://ucrtoday.ucr.edu/25894

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12/25/2014

UCR Today: Its Filamentary: How Galaxies Evolve in the Cosmic Web

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issues critical to Inland Southern California, the state and communities around the world. Reflecting California's diverse culture, UCR's
enrollment has exceeded 21,000 students. The campus opened a medical school in 2013 and has reached the heart of the Coachella
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Last modified: 2014-Nov-20

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12/25/2014

'Cosmic Web' of the Universe --"Reveals an Enormous Non-Random Network of Galaxies"

The Daily Galaxy --Great Discoveries Channel: Sci, Space, Tech

F O L L O W T H E DA IL Y G A L A X Y

Science Discovered God?

Do New Scientific Discoveries Point to a Creator of the Universe?

Nov ember 20, 2014

'Cosmic Web' of the Universe --"Reveals an Enormous Non-Random Network of Galaxies"

The distribution of galaxies and matter in the univ erse is non-random. Galaxies are organized, ev en today , in a manner
resembling an enormous network - the cosmic web. This web has dense regions made up of galaxy clusters and groups, sparsely
populated regions dev oid of galaxies, as well as the filaments that link ov erdense regions.
"We think the cosmic web, dominated by dark matter, formed v ery early in the history of the univ erse, starting with small initial
fluctuations in the primordial univ erse," said Behnam Darv ish, at the Department of Phy sics and Astronomy at UC Riv erside.
"Such a 'skeletal' univ erse must hav e play ed, in principle, a role in galaxy formation and ev olution, but this was incredibly hard to
study and understand until recently ."
The researchers highlight the role of the "cosmic web" - a large-scale web-like structure comprised of galaxies - on the ev olution of
galaxies that took place in the distant univ erse, a few billion y ears after the Big Bang. In their paper, published Nov . 20 in the
Astrophy sical Journal, they present observ ations showing that thread-like "filaments" in the cosmic web play ed an important role
in this ev olution. "The filaments are like bridges connecting the denser regions in the cosmic web," Darv ish explained. "Imagine
threads wov en into the web."
"But the role of intermediate env ironments and, in particular, the role of filaments and the cosmic web in the early univ erse
remained, until v ery recently , a my stery ," said coauthor Bahram Mobasher, a professor of phy sics and astronomy at UCR and
Darv ish's adv iser. What greatly assisted the researchers is a giant section of the cosmic web first rev ealed in two big cosmological
surv ey s (COSMOS and HiZELS). They proceeded to explore data also from sev eral telescopes (Hubble, VLT, UKIRT and Subaru).
They then applied a new computational method to identify the filaments, which, in turn, helped them study the role of the cosmic
web.
http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2014/11/cosmic-web-of-our-universe-reveals-an-enormous-non-random-network-of-galaxies-1.html

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12/25/2014

'Cosmic Web' of the Universe --"Reveals an Enormous Non-Random Network of Galaxies"

They found that galaxies residing in the cosmic web/filaments hav e a much higher chance of activ ely forming stars. In other
words, in the distant univ erse, galaxy ev olution seems to hav e been accelerated in the filaments.
"It is possible that such filaments 'pre-process' galaxies, accelerating their ev olution while also funneling them towards clusters,
where they are fully processed by the dense env ironment of clusters and likely end up as dead galaxies," Darv ish said. "Our results
also show that such enhancement/acceleration is likely due to galaxy -galaxy interactions in the filaments."
Because of the complexities inv olv ed in quantify ing the cosmic web, astronomers usually limit the study of the cosmic web to
numerical simulations and observ ations in our local univ erse. Howev er, in this new study , the researchers focused their work on
the distant univ erse - when the univ erse was approximately half its present age.
"We were surprised by the crucial role the filaments play in galaxy formation and ev olution," Mobasher said. "Star formation is
enhanced in them. The filaments likely increase the chance of grav itational interaction between galaxies, which, in turn, results in
this star-formation enhancement. There is ev idence in our local univ erse that this process in filaments also continues to occur at
the present time."
Darv ish and Mobasher were joined in this research by L. V. Sales at UCR; Dav id Sobral at the Univ ersidade de Lisboa, Portugal; N.
Z. Scov ille at the California Institute of Technology ; P. Best at the Roy al Observ atory of Ediburgh, United Kingdom; and I. Smail at
Durham Univ ersity , United Kingdom.
Next, the team plans to extend this study to other epochs in the age of the univ erse to study the role of the cosmic web/filaments
in galaxy formation and ev olution across cosmic time. "This will be a fundamental piece of the puzzle in order to understand how
galaxies form and ev olv e as a whole," Sobral said.
The image at the top of the page is a simulation showing galaxy clusters embedded in the cosmic web.
Image courtesy of Klaus Dolag, Univ ersitts-Sternwarte Mnchen, Ludwig-Maximilians-Univ ersitt Mnchen, Germany
The Daily Galaxy v ia UC Riv erside
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Posted
atd10:39
(W eek en
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A st r oph y sicist s "Bla ck Holes

Usin g Big
a r e A ct u a lly
Ba n g 's
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Pr im or dia l
Colla psin g
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AM
St r u|ctPermalink
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Refu t es
Ha w k in g

T h e Pla n ck
Spa cecr a ft :
A n Epic New
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Ou r In v isible,
Da r k
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Spa ce
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My st er y By
Ey ein g Ea r ly
Ga la x ies

Com m ents
Non-random ? Take care with term s like that.
Posted by : Define Real | Nov em ber 2 0, 2 01 4 at 04 :2 8 PM
The first tim e I saw the cosm ic web, m y first thought was, "This m eans som ething."
Posted by : Lonestar | Nov em ber 2 1 , 2 01 4 at 01 :3 2 AM
The univ erse is totally random , hum ans hav e been study ing the univ erse for how long? Not long enough to m ake a statem ent like nonrandom , so naiv e.
Posted by : Thunder | Nov em ber 2 1 , 2 01 4 at 03 :1 6 AM
As I hav e stated elsewhere on these pages,galaxies can only form along these filam entary web like lanes.only electrom agnetic plasm a
which is form ed with birkland currents shapes the recognisable structures we perceiv e as galaxies.grav ity initially play s no part in these
form ations until after the structure has form ed.
Posted by : m ikey o | Nov em ber 2 1 , 2 01 4 at 05:1 8 AM
The cosm ic web looks v ery m uch like a m uch enlarged v ersion of the shocked filam entary structure of a supernov a rem nant. Could that
hav e been produced by the Big Bang and subsequently enlarged by univ ersal expansion? Does any body hav e an opinion?
Posted by : Ancient Mariner | Nov em ber 2 1 , 2 01 4 at 05:3 5 AM
http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2014/11/cosmic-web-of-our-universe-reveals-an-enormous-non-random-network-of-galaxies-1.html

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'Cosmic Web' of the Universe --"Reveals an Enormous Non-Random Network of Galaxies"

"The univ erse is totally random ..."

And y ou know this how?
Posted by : Sky Daddy 5 | Nov em ber 2 1 , 2 01 4 at 07 :54 AM
Two things...running a sim ulation and m aking pronouncem ents about "results" is not observ ational science...and two, please com pare a
m icroscopic scan of hum an brain tissue and the large scale structure of the univ erse.
Posted by : Sad King Billy | Nov em ber 2 1 , 2 01 4 at 08:3 3 AM
@sky daddy 5, when y ou look up in the sky at night I'm sure y our positiv e there's order, ev ery thing in it's place, right where it should
be,without exception, sorry , but if y our blogging on here y our not one of the elite intelligent.....
Posted by : Lightning | Nov em ber 2 1 , 2 01 4 at 1 0:3 7 AM
It is there because it the big bang was the splitting of a giant dark m atter black hole into trace tracking splinters as the origin of prim ordial
star and later galaxy form ation.
Posted by : Leo Vuy k | Nov em ber 2 2 , 2 01 4 at 02 :53 AM
Let's see, Lightning. Two apostrophe m istakes in y our ine short com m ent, and y ou are posting on here, which, by y our own definition,
m eans y ou're not one of the elite intelligent. Hm m .
Our definition of random ness is quite v exed. When scientists declare the univ erse is totally random , it turns out that there is a usually
unnoticed tautology inv olv ed. Most scientists define random ness by m eans of two characteristics: unpredictability and disorder. But
disorder is just another word for random ness. In fact, only one characteristic of random ness is not tautological--unpredictability . But we
hav e seen that unpredictability can arise from form al, i. e. nonrandom sy stem s.
The fact is, nobody knows. We m ay hav e strong opinions, but those opinions cannot be dem onstrated as fact.
Posted by : Jack Butler | Nov em ber 2 3 , 2 01 4 at 08:01 AM
Posters m ickey o and ancient m ariner hav e offered som e good insight to those who hav en't studied astrophy sics m uch. Thank y ou.
The univ erse has had plenty of tim e to arrange itself the way it is as we see it today . The key phrase here is "arrange itself". Lest we digress
into y ep a "god" done it blabla or such uneducated m alarky , the electrom agnetic "traffic" gently pushes/shov es m atter into these filam ents
in a random way , random patterning depending on subtile concentrations and rarities of m atter as the univ erse expands, then as one
poster inform ed abov e, grav ity takes ov er to firm up what photons started. Most likely this is the scenario causing filam entation of the
univ erse's structure, and of course y es, the m orphology resem bles brain tissue, it'd be pretty unlikely if it resem bles the Play boy logo,
right?
What started out as random arranged ITSELF one way or the other, photons and grav ity , to what our instrum ents giv e us.
I do hav e to com m end those who go through the arduous task of dev eloping software to aid in research, sim ulations etc.. but we m ust
alway s rem em ber they are only sim ulations based on our hum anly scant knowledge of what/where/how the univ erse "is". We don't know
the fundam entals so it is not surprising we can't know what we are ev en looking at. Fundam entals being space, tim e, grav ity , m agnetism
and electrical charge. We really don't know what these are (and please don't tell m e charge is electrons and protons like a third grader,
charge is what m akes them charged and we don't know y et what does that). So we're like m y dog. He has no idea what goes into buiy ing
food, cooking it up and fixing his supper..he only sees what he concepts as "supper". We only see photons. Thim k about it...what a v ery
shallow lim it we hum ans hav e.
Posted by : Charley | Decem ber 1 5, 2 01 4 at 03 :1 3 PM

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2014/11/cosmic-web-of-our-universe-reveals-an-enormous-non-random-network-of-galaxies-1.html

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