Galaxy and Mass Assembly (GAMA): Fine filaments of galaxies detected within voids
Mehmet Alpaslan, Aaron S. G. Robotham, Danail Obreschkow, Samantha Penny, Simon Driver, Peder Norberg, Sarah Brough, Michael Brown, Michelle Cluver, Benne Holwe… 展开作者
Mehmet Alpaslan, Aaron S. G. Robotham, Danail Obreschkow, Samantha Penny, Simon Driver, Peder Norberg, Sarah Brough, Michael Brown, Michelle Cluver, Benne Holwerda, Andrew M. Hopkins, Eelco van Kampen, Lee S. Kelvin, Maritza A. Lara-Lopez, Jochen Liske, Jon Loveday, Smriti Mahajan, Kevin Pimbblet
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6 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS Letters on Tue 28 Jan 2014
Based on data from the Galaxy and Mass Assembly (GAMA) survey, we report on the discovery of structures that we refer to as `tendrils' of galaxies: coherent, thin chains of galaxies that are rooted in filaments and terminate in neighbouring filaments or voids. On average, tendrils contain 6 galaxies and span 10 $h^{-1}$ Mpc. We use the so-called line correlation function to prove that tendrils represent real structures rather than accidental alignments. We show that voids found in the SDSS-DR7 survey that overlap with GAMA regions contain a large number of galaxies, primarily belonging to tendrils. This implies that void sizes are strongly dependent on the number density and sensitivity limits of a survey. We caution that galaxies in low density regions, that may be defined as `void galaxies,' will have local galaxy number densities that depend on such observational limits and are likely higher than can be directly measured.
Cosmic filaments play a role of bridges along which matter and gas accrete onto galaxies to trigger star formation and feed central black holes. Here we explore the correlations between the intrinsic properties of void galaxies and the linearity R_L of void filaments (degree of filament's straightness). We focus on void regions since the bridge effect of filaments should be most conspicuous in the pristine underdense regions like voids. Analyzing the Millennium-Run semi-analytic galaxy catalogue, we identify void filaments consisting of more than four galaxies (three edges) and calculate the m…
The bridge effect of void filaments is a phrase coined by Park & Lee (2009b) to explain the correlations found in a numerical experiment between the luminosity of the void galaxies and the degree of the straightness of their host filaments. Their numerical finding implies that a straight void filament provides a narrow channel for the efficient transportation of gas and matter particles from the surroundings into the void galaxies. Analyzing the Sloan void catalog constructed by Pan et al (2012), we identify the filamentary structures in void regions and determine the specific size of each voi…
From a volume limited sample of 45,542 galaxies and 6,000 groups with $z \leq 0.213$ we use an adapted minimal spanning tree algorithm to identify and classify large scale structures within the Galaxy and Mass Assembly (GAMA) survey. Using galaxy groups, we identify 643 filaments across the three equatorial GAMA fields that span up to 200 $h^{-1}$ Mpc in length, each with an average of 8 groups within them. By analysing galaxies not belonging to groups we identify a secondary population of smaller coherent structures composed entirely of galaxies, dubbed `tendrils' that appear to link filament…
Cosmological voids provide a unique environment for the study of galaxy formation and evolution. The galaxy population in their interior have significantly different properties than average field galaxies. As part of our Void Galaxy Survey (VGS), we have found a system of three interacting galaxies (VGS_31) inside a large void. VGS_31 is a small elongated group whose members are embedded in a common HI envelope. The HI picture suggests a filamentary structure with accretion of intergalactic cold gas from the filament onto the galaxies. We present deep optical and narrow band H_alpha data, opti…
We investigate the dependence of the galaxy luminosity function on geometric environment within the Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA) survey. The tidal tensor prescription, based on the Hessian of the pseudo-gravitational potential, is used to classify the cosmic web and define the geometric environments: for a given smoothing scale, we classify every position of the surveyed region, $0.04<{z}<0.26$, as either a void, a sheet, a filament or a knot. We consider how to choose appropriate thresholds in the eigenvalues of the Hessian in order to partition the galaxies approximately evenly between en…
We study the formation and evolution of filamentary configurations of dark matter haloes in voids. Our investigation uses the high-resolution LambdaCDM simulation CosmoGrid to look for void systems resembling the VGS_31 elongated system of three interacting galaxies that was recently discovered by the Void Galaxy Survey (VGS) inside a large void in the SDSS galaxy redshift survey. HI data revealed these galaxies to be embedded in a common elongated envelope, possibly embedded in intravoid filament. In the CosmoGrid simulation we look for systems similar to VGS_31 in mass, size and environment.…
We present evidence for halo assembly bias as a function of geometric environment. By classifying GAMA galaxy groups as residing in voids, sheets, filaments or knots using a tidal tensor method, we find that low-mass haloes that reside in knots are older than haloes of the same mass that reside in voids. This result provides direct support to theories that link strong halo tidal interactions with halo assembly times. The trend with geometric environment is reversed at large halo mass, with haloes in knots being younger than haloes of the same mass in voids. We find a clear signal of halo downs…
We study the formation and evolution of the cosmic web, using the high-resolution CosmoGrid \$Λ\$CDM simulation. In particular, we investigate the evolution of the large-scale structure around void halo groups, and compare this to observations of the VGS-31 galaxy group, which consists of three interacting galaxies inside a large void. The structure around such haloes shows a great deal of tenuous structure, with most of such systems being embedded in intra-void filaments and walls. We use the Nexus+ algorithm to detect walls and filaments in CosmoGrid, and find them to be present and detectab…
We report the results of the 2dF-VST ATLAS Cold Spot galaxy redshift survey (2CSz) based on imaging from VST ATLAS and spectroscopy from 2dF AAOmega over the core of the CMB Cold Spot. We sparsely surveyed the inner 5$^{\circ}$ radius of the Cold Spot to a limit of $i_{AB} \le 19.2$, sampling $\sim7000$ galaxies at $z<0.4$. We have found voids at $z=$ 0.14, 0.26 and 0.30 but they are interspersed with small over-densities and the scale of these voids is insufficient to explain the Cold Spot through the $Λ$CDM ISW effect. Combining with previous data out to $z\sim1$, we conclude that the CMB Co…
We investigate the impact of filament and void environments on galaxies, looking for residual effects beyond the known relations with environment density. We quantified the host environment of galaxies as the distance to the spine of the nearest filament, and compared various galaxy properties within 12 bins of this distance. We considered galaxies up to 10 $h^{-1}$Mpc from filaments, i.e. deep inside voids. The filaments were defined by a point process (the Bisous model) from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey data release 10. In order to remove the dependence of galaxy properties on the environmen…
(abridged) We present the Significant Cosmic Holes in Universe (SCHU) method for identifying cosmic voids and loops of filaments in cosmological datasets and assigning their statistical significance using techniques from topological data analysis. Persistent homology is used to find different dimensional holes. For dark matter halo catalogs and galaxy surveys, the 0-, 1-, and 2-dimensional holes can be identified with clusters, loops of filaments, and voids. The procedure overlays halos/galaxies on a 3D grid, and a distance-to-measure (DTM) function is calculated at each point of the grid. A f…
VGS31b is a highly-inclined ring galaxy found along a filament in a void (Kreckel et al. 2012). Detailed photometry, by using u, g, r, i, z SDSS images, has shown that the overall morphology of VGS31b is very tricky, due to (i) the presence of a highly inclined (72 deg) ring-like structure, which reaches the galaxy center tracing a "spiral-like" pattern, (ii) a one sided tail towards North-East and (iii) a bar in the central regions (Beygu et al. 2013). Such structure is reasonably the result of a "second event" in the evolution history of this galaxy, which could be a gravitational interactio…
Using computer simulations we study the geometry of a typical quantum universe, i.e. the geometry one might expect before a possible period of inflation. We display it using coordinates defined by means of four classical scalar fields satisfying the Laplace equation with non-trivial boundary conditions. The field configurations reveal cosmic web structures surprisingly similar to the ones observed in the present-day Universe. Inflation might make these structures relevant for our Universe.
We analyze the IllustrisTNG simulations to study the mass, volume fraction and phase distribution of gaseous baryons embedded in the knots, filaments, sheets and voids of the Cosmic Web from redshift $z=8$ to redshift $z=0$. We find that filaments host more star-forming gas than knots, and that filaments also have a higher relative mass fraction of gas in this phase than knots. We also show that the cool, diffuse Intergalactic Medium (IGM; $T<10^5 \, {\rm K}$, $ n_{\rm H}<10^{-4}(1+z) \, {\rm cm^{-3}}$) and the Warm-Hot Intergalactic Medium (WHIM; $ 10^5 \, {\rm K} <T<10^7 \, {\rm K}$, $ n_{\r…
Topological connections in the single-streaming voids and multistreaming filaments and walls reveal a cosmic web structure different from traditional mass density fields. A single void structure not only percolates the multistream field in all the directions, but also occupies over 99 per cent of all the single-streaming regions. Sub-grid analyses on scales smaller than simulation resolution reveal tiny pockets of voids that are isolated by membranes of the structure. For the multistreaming excursion sets, the percolating structure is significantly thinner than the filaments in over-density ex…
The kinetic approach to the formation of the filaments in the large-scale matter distribution in the Universe is considered within the Vlasov formalism. The structures arise due to the self-consistent dynamics, along with the repulsive term in the modified Newtonian gravity which includes the cosmological constant. That modified gravity enables one to describe the Hubble tension as a result of two flows, the local and global ones. The criteria for formation of non--stationary semi-periodic structures in a system of gravitating particles described by Vlasov--Poisson equations are obtained in th…
Cosmicflows-3 distances and inferred peculiar velocities of galaxies have permitted the reconstruction of the structure of over and under densities within the volume extending to 0.05c. This study focuses on the under dense regions, particularly the Local Void that lies largely in the zone of obscuration and consequently has received limited attention. Major over dense structures that bound the Local Void are the Perseus-Pisces and Norma-Pavo-Indus filaments separated by 8,500 km/s. The void network of the universe is interconnected and void passages are found from the Local Void to the adjace…
We study the effect of baryons on the cosmic web -- halos, filaments, walls, and voids. To do so, we apply a modified version of NEXUS, a cosmic web morphological analysis algorithm, to the IllustrisTNG simulations. We find that halos lose more than $10\%$ of their mass due to baryons, mostly to filaments and a small portion to walls and voids. However, the mass transfer does not significantly shift the boundaries of structures, leaving the volume fractions of the cosmic structures largely unaffected. We quantify the effects of baryonic feedback on the power spectrum and the probability densit…
We examine the effects of pre-processing across the Coma Supercluster, including 3505 galaxies over 500 sq deg, by quantifying the degree to which star-forming (SF) activity is quenched as a function of environment. We characterise environment using the complementary techniques of Voronoi Tessellation, to measure the density field, and the Minimal Spanning Tree, to define continuous structures, and so we measure SF activity as a function of local density and the type of environment (cluster, group, filament, and void), and quantify the degree to which environment contributes to quenching of SF…
We present a new method of tracking and characterizing the environment in which galaxies and their associated circumgalactic medium evolve. We use a structure finding algorithm we developed to self-consistently parse and follow the evolution of poor clusters, filaments and voids in large scale simulations. We trace the complete evolution of the baryons in the gas phase and the star formation history within each structure in our simulated volume. We vary the structure measure threshold to probe the complex inner structure of star forming regions in poor clusters, filaments and voids. We find th…
Focusing on both small separations and Baryonic Acoustic Oscillation scales, the cosmic evolution of the clustering properties of peak, void, wall, and filament-type critical points is measured using two-point correlation functions in $Λ$CDM dark matter simulations as a function of their relative rarity. A qualitative comparison to the corresponding theory for Gaussian Random fields allows us to understand the following observed features: i) the appearance of an exclusion zone at small separation, whose size depends both on rarity and on the signature (\ie the number of negative eigenvalues) o…
Cosmic voids are underdense regions filling up most of the volume in the Universe. They are expected to emerge in regions comprising negative initial density fluctuations, and subsequently expand as the matter around them collapses and forms walls, filaments and clusters. We report results from the analysis of a cosmological simulation specially designed to accurately describe low-density regions, such as cosmic voids. Contrary to the common expectation, we find that voids also experience significant mass inflows over cosmic history. On average, $10\%$ of the mass of voids in the sample at $z …
Voids in the large scale distribution of galaxies were first recognized and discussed as an astrophysical phenomenon in two papers published in 1978. We published the first (Gregory and Thompson 1978) and Joeveer, Einasto and Tago (1978) published the second. The discovery of voids altered the accepted view of the large scale structure of the universe. In the old picture, the universe was filled with field galaxies, and occasional density enhancements could be found at the locations of rich galaxy clusters or superclusters. In the new picture, voids are interspersed between complex filamentary…
We study the relations between the multimodality of galaxy clusters drawn from the SDSS DR8 and the environment where they reside. We find that multimodal clusters reside in higher density environment than unimodal clusters. We determine morphological types of superclusters and show that clusters in superclusters of spider morphology have higher probabilities to have substructure and larger peculiar velocities of their main galaxies than clusters in superclusters of filament morphology. Our study shows the importance of the role of superclusters as high density environment which affects the pr…
The expanding complex pattern of filaments, walls and voids build the evolving cosmic web with material flowing from underdense onto high density regions. Here we explore the dynamical behaviour of voids and galaxies in void shells relative to neighboring overdense superstructures, using the Millenium Simulation and the main galaxy catalogue in Sloan Digital Sky Survey data. We define a correlation measure to estimate the tendency of voids to be located at a given distance from a superstructure. We find voids-in-clouds (S-types) preferentially located closer to superstructures than voids-in-vo…
We study the relations between the multimodality of galaxy clusters drawn from the SDSS DR8 and the environment where they reside. As cluster environment we consider the global luminosity density field, supercluster membership, and supercluster morphology. We use 3D normal mixture modelling, the Dressler-Shectman test, and the peculiar velocity of cluster main galaxies as signatures of multimodality of clusters. We calculate the luminosity density field to study the environmental densities around clusters, and to find superclusters where clusters reside. We determine the morphology of superclu…
Galaxy redshift surveys, such as 2dF, SDSS, 6df, GAMA and VIPERS, have shown that the spatial distribution of matter forms a rich web, known as the cosmic web. The majority of galaxy survey analyses measure the amplitude of galaxy clustering as a function of scale, ignoring information beyond a small number of summary statistics. Since the matter density field becomes highly non-Gaussian as structure evolves under gravity, we expect other statistical descriptions of the field to provide us with additional information. One way to study the non-Gaussianity is to study filaments, which evolve non…
Structures like galaxies and filaments of galaxies in the Universe come about from the origami-like folding of an initially flat three-dimensional manifold in 6D phase space. The ORIGAMI method identifies these structures in a cosmological simulation, delineating the structures according to their outer folds. Structure identification is a crucial step in comparing cosmological simulations to observed maps of the Universe. The ORIGAMI definition is objective, dynamical and geometric: filament, wall and void particles are classified according to the number of orthogonal axes along which dark-mat…
Using a set of high-resolution simulations we study the statistical correlation of dark matter halo properties with the large-scale environment. We consider halo populations split into four Cosmic Web (CW) elements: voids, walls, filaments, and nodes. For the first time we present a study of CW effects for halos covering six decades in mass: $10^{8}-10^{14}{h^{-1}{\rm M}_{\odot}}$. We find that the fraction of halos living in various web components is a strong function of mass, with the majority of $M>10^{12}{h^{-1}{\rm M}_{\odot}}$ halos living in filaments and nodes. Low mass halos are more …
We investigate the characteristics and the time evolution of the cosmic web from redshift, z=2, to present time, within the framework of the NEXUS+ algorithm. This necessitates the introduction of new analysis tools optimally suited to describe the very intricate and hierarchical pattern that is the cosmic web. In particular, we characterize filaments (walls) in terms of their linear (surface) mass density. This is very good in capturing the evolution of these structures. At early times the cosmos is dominated by tenuous filaments and sheets, which, during subsequent evolution, merge together,…
The network of filaments with embedded clusters surrounding voids seen in maps derived from redshift surveys and reproduced in simulations has been referred to as the cosmic web. A complementary description is provided by considering the shear in the velocity field of galaxies. The eigenvalues of the shear provide information on whether a region is collapsing in three dimensions, the condition for a knot, expanding in three-dimensions, the condition for a void, or in the intermediate condition of a filament or sheet. The structures that are quantitatively defined by the eigenvalues can be appr…
The Void Galaxy Survey (VGS) is a multi-wavelength program to study $\sim$60 void galaxies. Each has been selected from the deepest interior regions of identified voids in the SDSS redshift survey on the basis of a unique geometric technique, with no a prior selection of intrinsic properties of the void galaxies. The project intends to study in detail the gas content, star formation history and stellar content, as well as kinematics and dynamics of void galaxies and their companions in a broad sample of void environments. It involves the HI imaging of the gas distribution in each of the VGS ga…
The cosmic web is the largest scale manifestation of the anisotropic gravitational collapse of matter. It represents the transitional stage between linear and non-linear structures and contains easily accessible information about the early phases of structure formation processes. Here we investigate the characteristics and the time evolution of morphological components since. Our analysis involves the application of the NEXUS Multiscale Morphology Filter (MMF) technique, predominantly its NEXUS+ version, to high resolution and large volume cosmological simulations. We quantify the cosmic web c…
The intrinsic alignments of galaxies, i.e., the correlation between galaxy shapes and their environment, are a major source of contamination for weak gravitational lensing surveys. Most studies of intrinsic alignments have so far focused on measuring and modelling the correlations of luminous red galaxies with galaxy positions or the filaments of the cosmic web. In this work, we investigate alignments around cosmic voids. We measure the intrinsic alignments of luminous red galaxies detected by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey around a sample of voids constructed from those same tracers and with ra…
Impact of the large-scale cosmic web on the X-ray emitting circumgalactic medium
Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics(马克斯·普朗克地外物理研究所);Yale University(耶鲁大学);European Southern Observatory(欧洲南方天文台);Institut d’Astrophysique de Paris(巴黎天体物理研究所);INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Brera(意大利国家天体物理研究所布雷拉天文台)
Large-scale structure of Universe includes galaxy clusters connected by filaments. Voids occupy the rest of cosmic volume. The search of any dependencities in filament structure can give answer to more general questions about origin of structures in the Universe. This becomes possible because, according to current picture of Universe, one could simulate the evolution of Universe until its very beginning or vice versa. According to current cosmological hydrodynamical theories a number of computer simulations of LSS were performed to describe its properties. In this work we consider alternative …
We study biasing as a physical phenomenon by analysing power spectra (PS) and correlation functions (CF) of simulated galaxy samples and dark matter (DM) samples. We apply an algorithm based on the local densities of particles, $ρ$, to form populations of simulated galaxies, using particles with $ρ\ge ρ_0$. We calculate two-point CF of projected (2D) and spatial (3D) density fields of simulated galaxies for various particle-density limits $ρ_0$. We compare 3D and 2D CFs; in 2D case we use samples of various thickness to find the dependence of 2D CFs on thickness of samples. Dominant elements o…
Contrary to the common view voids have very complex internal structure and dynamics. Here we show how the hierarchy of structures in the density field inside voids is reflected by a similar hierarchy of structures in the velocity field. Voids defined by dense filaments and clusters can de described as simple expanding domains with coherent flows everywhere except at their boundaries. At scales smaller that the void radius the velocity field breaks into expanding sub-domains corresponding to sub- voids. These sub-domains break into even smaller sub-sub domains at smaller scales resulting in a n…
Cosmic voids are large underdense regions that, together with galaxy clusters, filaments and walls, build up the large-scale structure of the Universe. The void size function provides a powerful probe to test the cosmological framework. However, to fully exploit this statistics, the void sample has to be properly cleaned from spurious objects. Furthermore, the bias of the mass tracers used to detect these regions has to be taken into account in the size function model. In our work we test a cleaning algorithm and a new void size function model on a set of simulated dark matter halo catalogues,…
Our goal is to see how density waves of different scale combine to form voids between galaxy systems of various scale. We perform numerical simulations of structure formation in cubes of size 100 and 256 Mpc/h, with resolutions 256^3 and 512^3 particles and cells. To understand the role of density perturbations of various scale we cut power spectra at scales from 8 to 128 Mpc/h, using in all series identical initial random realisations. We find that small haloes and short filaments form all over the simulation box, if perturbations only up to scale 8 Mpc/h are present. The phenomenon of large …
We report Suzaku observations of the northern half of the Hydra A cluster out to ~1.4 Mpc, reaching the virial radius. This is the first Suzaku observations of a medium-size (kT ~3 keV) cluster out to the virial radius. Two observations were conducted, north-west and north-east offsets, which continue in a filament direction and a void direction of the large-scale structure of the Universe, respectively. The X-ray emission and distribution of galaxies elongate in the filament direction. The temperature profiles in the two directions are mostly consistent with each other within the error bars a…
Galaxy surveys have shown that luminous galaxies are mainly distributed in large filaments and galaxy clusters. The remaining large volumes are virtually devoid of luminous galaxies. This is in concordance with the formation of the large-scale structure in Universe as derived from cosmological simulations. However, the numerical results indicate that cosmological voids are abundantly populated with dark matter haloes which may in principle host dwarf galaxies. Observational efforts have in contrast revealed, that voids are apparently devoid of dwarf galaxies. We investigate the formation of dw…
Galaxies are not distributed randomly in the cosmic web but are instead arranged in filaments and sheets surrounding cosmic voids. Observationally there is still no convincing evidence of a link between the properties of galaxies and their host structures. However, by the tidal torque theory (our understanding of the origin of galaxy angular momentum), such a link should exist. Using the presently largest spectroscopic galaxy redshift survey (SDSS) we study the connection between the spin axes of galaxies and the orientation of their host filaments. We use a three dimensional field of orientat…
The large-scale structure of the Universe is characterised by a web-like structure made of voids, sheets, filaments, and knots. The structure of this so-called cosmic web is dictated by the local velocity shear tensor. In particular, the local direction of a filament should be strongly aligned with e3, the eigenvector associated with the smallest eigenvalue of the tensor. That conjecture is tested here on the basis of a cosmological simulation. The cosmic web delineated by the halo distribution is probed by a marked point process with interactions (the Bisous model), detecting filaments direct…
The recently introduced discrete persistent structure extractor (DisPerSE, Soubie 2010, paper I) is implemented on realistic 3D cosmological simulations and observed redshift catalogues (SDSS); it is found that DisPerSE traces equally well the observed filaments, walls, and voids in both cases. In either setting, filaments are shown to connect onto halos, outskirt walls, which circumvent voids. Indeed this algorithm operates directly on the particles without assuming anything about the distribution, and yields a natural (topologically motivated) self-consistent criterion for selecting the sign…
Bootes filament of galaxies is a dispersed chain of groups residing on sky between the Local Void and the Virgo cluster. We consider a sample of 361 galaxies inside the sky area of $RA = 13.0^h ... 18.5^h$ and $Dec = -5^\circ ... +10^\circ$ with radial velocities $V_{LG} < 2000$ km/s to clarify its structure and kinematics. In this region, 161 galaxies have individual distance estimates. We use these data to draw the Hubble relation for galaxy groups, pairs as well as the field galaxies, and to examine the galaxy distribution on peculiar velocities. Our analysis exposes the known Virgo-centric…
Cosmic-web quenching with DESI DR1: T-Web environments and mass-dependent red/blue classification
Escuela de Física y Matemáticas del Instituto Politécnico Nacional(国立理工学院物理与数学学院);Departamento de Física, Centro de Investigación y de Estudios Avanzados del Instituto Politécnico Nacional(国立理工学院高级研究中心物理系);Tecnologico de Monterrey, Escuela de Ingeniería y Ciencias(蒙特雷科技大学工程与科学学院)
Clusters, filaments, sheets and voids are the building blocks of the cosmic web. In this study, we present and compare two distinct algorithms for finding cosmic filaments and sheets, a task which is far less well established than the identification of dark matter halos or voids. One method is based on the smoothed dark matter density field, the other uses the halo distributions directly. We apply both techniques to one high resolution N-body simulation and reconstruct the filamentary/sheet like network of the dark matter density field. We focus on investigating the properties of the dark matt…
In 1970 Zel'dovich published a far-reaching paper presenting a simple equation describing the nonlinear growth of primordial density inhomogeneities. The equation was remarkably successful in explaining the large scale structure in the Universe that we observe: a Universe in which the structure appears to be delineated by filaments and clusters of galaxies surrounding huge void regions. In order to concretise this impression it is necessary to define these structural elements through formal techniques with which we can compare the Zel'dovich model and N-body simulations with the observational …
We present DisPerSE, a novel approach to the coherent multi-scale identification of all types of astrophysical structures, and in particular the filaments, in the large scale distribution of matter in the Universe. This method and corresponding piece of software allows a genuinely scale free and parameter free identification of the voids, walls, filaments, clusters and their configuration within the cosmic web, directly from the discrete distribution of particles in N-body simulations or galaxies in sparse observational catalogues. To achieve that goal, the method works directly over the Delau…