Evidence for a Preferred Handedness of Spiral Galaxies

TL;DR

This study analyzes SDSS data to detect a preferred handedness in spiral galaxies, revealing a significant asymmetry aligned with cosmic microwave background anomalies, suggesting a possible large-scale cosmic anisotropy.

Contribution

It provides evidence for a preferred handedness of spiral galaxies and links this asymmetry to cosmic microwave background anomalies, indicating potential large-scale universe anisotropy.

Findings

Significant asymmetry in galaxy handedness with probability <0.2%.

The asymmetry axis aligns with the CMB 'axis of evil'.

Galaxy spin axes are aligned with the asymmetry axis.

Abstract

In this article I study the distribution of spiral galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) to investigate whether the universe has an overall handedness. A preference for spiral galaxies in one sector of the sky to be left-handed or right-handed spirals would indicate a preferred handedness. The SDSS data show a strong signal for such an asymmetry with a probability <0.2%. The asymmetry axis is at (RA,dec) ~(202 deg,25 deg) with an uncertainty ~15 deg. The axis appears to be correlated with that of the quadrupole and octopole moments in the WMAP microwave sky survey, an unlikely alignment that has been dubbed "the axis of evil". Our Galaxy is aligned with its spin axis along the same direction as the majority of the spirals.