Global and Local Effects of Rotation: Observational Aspects

TL;DR

This paper examines the observational evidence of rotation across cosmic structures, highlighting how angular momentum correlates with size and discussing implications for theories of galaxy formation and the universe's possible global rotation.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive review of observational data on cosmic rotation and evaluates how these findings support or challenge existing galaxy formation models and theories of universal rotation.

Findings

Galaxies and their groups exhibit non-zero angular momentum.

Clusters and superclusters show alignment of galaxy orientations.

The data supports theories linking galaxy angular momentum to their environment.

Abstract

In the paper we discussed the observational aspects of rotation in the Universe on different scales. We show dependence between the angular momentum of the structures and their size. The presented observational situation is that the galaxies, their pairs and compact groups have a non-vanishing angular momentum. In the structures of mass corresponding to groups of galaxies, this feature has not been found, while in the clusters and superclusters alignment of galaxy orientation has been actually found. Also we know that galaxies have net angular momentum due to the fact that we actually measure the rotation curves of galaxies. These facts lead to the conclusion that theories which connect galaxy angular momentum with its surrounding structure are at some extend favored by data. We show that in the light of scenarios of galaxy formations this result could be interpreted as an effect of tidal forces mechanism, but it is also consistent with Li's model, in which galaxies form in the rotating universe. The theoretical and observational aspects of possible global rotation of the Universe were discussed as well.