Re-examination of Large Scale Structure and Cosmic Flows

TL;DR

This paper re-evaluates galaxy flows and large-scale structure using new data, confirming the consistency of observed velocities with predictions from the galaxy distribution within 10,000 km/s, supporting standard cosmological models.

Contribution

It provides a new analysis using updated data and the Inverse Method, demonstrating the consistency of galaxy velocity fields with gravity predictions and linear perturbation theory.

Findings

Gravity field predicts velocity field accurately within 10,000 km/s

Results are consistent with standard cosmological parameters

Old discrepancies in galaxy flow analyses are resolved with new data

Abstract

Comparison of galaxy flows with those predicted from the local galaxy distribution ended as an active field after two analyses came to vastly different conclusions 25 years ago, but that was due to faulty data. All the old results are therefore suspect. With new data collected in the last several years, the problem deserves another look. For this we analyze the gravity field inferred from the enormous data set derived from the 2MASS collection of galaxies, and compare it to the velocity field derived from the well calibrated SFI++ Tully-Fisher catalog. Using the "Inverse Method" to minimize Malmquist biases, within 10,000 km/s the gravity field is seen to predict the velocity field to remarkable consistency. This is a beautiful demonstration of linear perturbation theory and is fully consistent with standard values of the cosmological variables.