The SAMI Galaxy Survey: First detection of a transition in spin orientation with respect to cosmic filaments in the stellar kinematics of galaxies

TL;DR

This study detects a mass-dependent transition in galaxy spin orientation relative to cosmic filaments, revealing that low-mass galaxies align with filaments while high-mass galaxies tend to be orthogonal, highlighting the role of gas physics.

Contribution

First observational detection of a mass-dependent transition in galaxy spin alignment with cosmic filaments using integral field spectroscopy data.

Findings

Low-mass galaxies align their spin with filaments.

High-mass galaxies tend to have orthogonal spin orientations.

Simulation results support a scenario of angular momentum build-up and spin flips.

Abstract

We present the first detection of mass dependent galactic spin alignments with local cosmic filaments with over 2 sigma confidence using IFS kinematics. The 3D network of cosmic filaments is reconstructed on Mpc scales across GAMA fields using the cosmic web extractor DisPerSe. We assign field galaxies from the SAMI survey to their nearest filament segment in 3D and estimate the degree of alignment between SAMI galaxies kinematic spin axis and their nearest filament in projection. Low-mass galaxies align their spin with their nearest filament while higher mass counterparts are more likely to display an orthogonal orientation. The stellar transition mass from the first trend to the second is bracketed between log stellar masses 10.4 and 10.9, with hints of an increase with filament scale. Consistent signals are found in the HorizonAGN cosmological hydrodynamic simulation. This supports a scenario of early angular momentum build-up in vorticity rich quadrants around filaments at low stellar mass followed by progressive flip of spins orthogonal to the cosmic filaments through mergers at high stellar mass. Conversely, we show that dark-matter only simulations post-processed with a semi-analytic model treatment of galaxy formation struggles to reproduce this alignment signal. This suggests that gas physics is key in enhancing the galaxy-filament alignment.