Diffuse filaments connect galaxy clusters to form the cosmic web. Detecting these filaments could yield information on the magnetic field strength, cosmic ray population and temperature of intercluster gas, yet, the faint and large-scale nature of these bridges makes direct detections very challenging. Using multiple independent all-sky radio and X-ray maps we stack pairs of luminous red galaxies as tracers for cluster pairs. For the first time, we detect an average surface brightness between the clusters from synchrotron (radio) and thermal (X-ray) emission with $\gtrsim 5σ$ significance, on physical scales larger than observed to date ($\geq 3\,$Mpc). We obtain a synchrotron spectral index of $α\simeq -1.0$ and estimates of the average magnetic field strength of $ 30 \leq B \leq 60 \,$nG, derived from both equipartition and Inverse Compton arguments, implying a 5 to 15$\,$per cent degree of field regularity when compared with Faraday rotation measure estimates. While the X-ray detection is inline with predictions, the average radio signal comes out higher than predicted by cosmological simulations and dark matter annihilation and decay models. This discovery demonstrates that there are connective structures between mass concentrations that are significantly magnetised, and the presence of sufficient cosmic rays to produce detectable synchrotron radiation.
We report the first statistical detection of X-ray emission from cosmic web filaments in ROSAT data. We selected 15,165 filaments at 0.2<z<0.6 ranging from 30 Mpc to 100 Mpc in length, identified in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) survey. We stacked the X-ray count-rate maps from ROSAT around the filaments, excluding resolved galaxy groups and clusters above the mass of ~3 * 10^13 Msun as well as the detected X-ray point sources from the ROSAT, Chandra, and XMM-Newton observations. The stacked signal results in the detection of the X-ray emission from the cosmic filaments at a significance…
We search for the lensing signal of massive filaments between 135,000 pairs of Luminous Red Galaxies (LRGs) from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. We develop a new estimator that cleanly removes the much larger shear signal of the neighboring LRG halos, relying only on the assumption of spherical symmetry. We consider two models: a thick filament model constructed from ray-tracing simulations for $Λ$CDM model, and a thin filament model which models the filament by a string of halos along the line connecting the two LRGs. We show that the filament lensing signal is in nice agreement with the thick …
We study the stacked filaments connecting group-mass halo pairs, using dark-matter-only N-body simulations. We calculate the dark matter over-density profile of these stacked filaments at different redshifts as a function of the distance perpendicular to the filament axis. A four-parameter universal functional form, including three comoving scale radii and one amplitude parameter (core density), provides a good fit out to a radius of 20 cMpc/h for stacked filaments over a range of redshifts, lengths and masses. The scale radii are approximately independent of redshift but increase as power-law…
We studied physical properties of matter in 24,544 filaments ranging from 30 to 100 Mpc in length, identified in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). We stacked the Comptonization y map produced by the Planck Collaboration around the filaments, excluding the resolved galaxy groups and clusters above a mass of ~3*10^13 Msun. We detected the thermal Sunyaev-Zel'dovich signal for the first time at a significance of 4.4 sigma in filamentary structures on such a large scale. We also stacked the Planck cosmic microwave background (CMB) lensing convergence map in the same manner and detected the lens…
Using the publicly available eROSITA Final Equatorial Depth Survey (eFEDS) data, we detected the stacked X-ray emissions at the position of 463 filaments at a significance of 3.8 sigma based on the combination of all energy bands. In parallel, we found that the probability of the measurement under the null hypothesis is ~0.0017. The filaments were identified with galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey survey, ranging from 30 Mpc to 100 Mpc in length at 0.2 < z < 0.6. The stacking of the filaments was performed with the eFEDS X-ray count-rate maps in the energy range between 0.4 - 2.3 keV aft…
The problem of detecting dark matter filaments in the cosmic web is considered. Weak lensing is an ideal probe of dark matter, and therefore forms the basis of particularly promising detection methods. We consider and develop a number of weak lensing techniques that could be used to detect filaments in individual or stacked cluster fields, and apply them to synthetic lensing data sets in the fields of clusters from the Millennium Simulation. These techniques are multipole moments of the shear and convergence, mass reconstruction, and parameterized fits to filament mass profiles using a Markov …
Simulations of structure formation in the Universe predict that galaxies are embedded in a "cosmic web", where the majority of baryons reside as rarefied and highly ionized gas. This material has been studied for decades in absorption against background sources, but the sparseness of these inherently one-dimensional probes preclude direct constraints on the three-dimensional morphology of the underlying web. Here we report observations of a cosmic web filament in Lyman-alpha emission, discovered during a survey for cosmic gas fluorescently "illuminated" by bright quasars at z=2.3. With a proje…
An optical cluster finder inevitably suffers from projection effects, where it misidentifies a superposition of galaxies in multiple halos along the line-of-sight as a single cluster. Using mock cluster catalogs built from cosmological N-body simulations, we quantify the impact of these projection effects with a particular focus on the observables of interest for cluster cosmology, namely the cluster lensing and the cluster clustering signals. We find that "observed" clusters, i.e. clusters identified by our cluster finder algorithm, exhibit lensing and clustering signals that deviate from exp…
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…
We investigate whether the satellite luminosity function (LF) of primary galaxies identified in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) depends on whether the host galaxy is in a filament or not. Isolated primary galaxies are identified in the SDSS spectroscopic sample while potential satellites (that are up to 4 magnitudes fainter than their hosts) are searched for in the much deeper photometric sample. Filaments are constructed from the galaxy distribution by the "Bisous" process. Isolated primary galaxies are divided into two subsamples: those in filaments and those not in filaments. We examine…
Most of the baryons in the Universe are thought to be contained within filaments of galaxies, but as yet, no single study has published the observed properties of a large sample of known filaments to determine typical physical characteristics such as temperature and electron density. This paper presents a comprehensive large-scale search conducted for X-ray emission from a population of 41 bona fide filaments of galaxies to determine their X-ray flux and electron density. The sample is generated from Pimbblet et al.'s (2004) filament catalogue, which is in turn sourced from the 2 degree Field …
The cold dark matter model predicts that dark matter haloes are connected by filaments. Direct measurements of the masses and structure of these filaments are difficult, but recently several studies have detected these dark-matter-dominated filaments using weak lensing. Here we study the efficiency of galaxy formation within the filaments by measuring their total mass-to-light ratios and stellar mass fractions. Specifically, we stack pairs of Luminous Red Galaxies (LRGs) with a typical separation on the sky of $8 h^{-1}$ Mpc. We stack background galaxy shapes around pairs to obtain mass maps t…
We have discovered a 2.5 Mpc (projected) long filament of infrared-bright galaxies connecting two of the three ~5x10^14 Msun clusters making up the RCS 2319+00 supercluster at z=0.9. The filament is revealed in a deep Herschel Spectral and Photometric Imaging REceiver (SPIRE) map that shows 250-500um emission associated with a spectroscopically identified filament of galaxies spanning two X-ray bright cluster cores. We estimate that the total (8-1000um) infrared luminosity of the filament is Lir~5x10^12 Lsun, which, if due to star formation alone, corresponds to a total SFR 900 Msun/yr. We are…
Revealing the intricacies of radio galaxies and filaments in the merging galaxy cluster Abell 2255. II. Properties of filaments using multi-frequency radio data
The large-scale structure of the Universe, as traced by the distribution of galaxies, is now being revealed by large-volume cosmological surveys. The structure is characterized by galaxies distributed along filaments, the filaments connecting in turn to form a percolating network. Our objective here is to quantitatively specify the underlying mechanisms that drive the formation of the cosmic network: By combining percolation-based analyses with N-body simulations of gravitational structure formation, we elucidate how the network has its origin in the properties of the initial density field (na…
We present a multiwavelength study of the double radio relic cluster A1240 at z=0.195. Our Subaru-based weak lensing analysis detects three mass clumps forming a ~4 Mpc filamentary structure elongated in the north-south orientation. The northern ($M_{200}=2.61_{-0.60}^{+0.51}\times10^{14} M_{\odot}$) and middle ($M_{200}=1.09_{-0.43}^{+0.34}\times10^{14} M_{\odot}$) mass clumps separated by ~1.3 Mpc are associated with A1240 and co-located with the X-ray peaks and cluster galaxy overdensities revealed by Chandra and MMT/Hectospec observations, respectively. The southern mass clump ($M_{200}=1.…
The strikingly anisotropic large-scale distribution of matter made of an extended network of voids delimited by sheets, themselves segmented by filaments, within which matter flows towards compact nodes where they intersect, imprints its geometry on the dynamics of cosmic flows, ultimately shaping the distribution of galaxies and the redshift evolution of their properties. The (filament-type) saddle points of this cosmic web provide a local frame in which to quantify the induced physical and morphological evolution of galaxies on large scales. The properties of virtual galaxies within the Hori…
The vortical motions of the baryonic gas residing in large scale structures are investigated by cosmological hydrodynamic simulations. Proceeding in the formation of the cosmic web, the vortical motions of baryonic matter are pumped up by baroclinity in two stages, i.e., the formation of sheets, and filaments. The mean curl velocity are about $< 1$, 1-10, 10-150, 5-50 km/s in voids, sheets, filaments and knots at $z=0$, respectively. The scaling of the vortical velocity of gas can be well described by the She-Leveque hierarchical turbulence model in the range of $l<0.65(1.50) h^{-1}$ Mpc in si…
