Estimating the Turn-Around Radii of Six Isolated Galaxy Groups in the Local Universe

TL;DR

This study estimates the turn-around radii of six isolated galaxy groups in the local universe, finding that half of them exceed the theoretical bound predicted by Planck cosmology, suggesting potential deviations or measurement uncertainties.

Contribution

First application of the Turn-around Radius Estimator to real galaxy groups, revealing possible violations of cosmological bounds in the local universe.

Findings

Three groups have larger turn-around radii than the Planck bound.

Only six out of 59 groups show web-like structures suitable for analysis.

Potential measurement uncertainties may explain the apparent violations.

Abstract

The estimates of the turn-around radii of six isolated galaxy groups in the nearby universe are presented. From the Tenth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, we first select those isolated galaxy groups at redshifts $z\le 0.05$ in the mass range of [0.3-1]$\times10^{14}\,h^{-1}M_{\odot}$ whose nearest neighbor groups are located at distances larger than fiften times their virial radii. Then, we search for a gravitationally interacting web-like structure around each isolated group, which appears as an inclined streak pattern in the anisotropic spatial distribution of the neighbor field galaxies . Out of 59 isolated groups, only seven are found to possess such web-like structures in their neighbor zones, but one of them turns out to be NGC 5353/4, whose turn-around radius was already measured in the previous work and thus excluded from our analysis. Applying the Turn-around Radius Estimator algorithm devised by Lee et al. to the identified web-like structures of the remaining six target groups, we determine their turn-around radii and show that three out of the six targets have larger turn-around radii than the spherical bound limit predicted by the Planck cosmology. We discuss possible sources of the apparent violations of the three groups, including the underestimated spherical bound-limit due to the approximation of the turn-around mass by the virial mass.