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Overview of Uncovered and Suspected Large-Scale Structures Behind the Milky Way

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Overview of Uncovered and Suspected Large-Scale Structures Behind the Milky Way Publ. Astron. Soc. Aust., 1999, 16, 53–9. Overview of Uncovered and Suspected Large-scale Structures behind the Milky Way Renee C. Kraan-Korteweg1 and Patrick A. Woudt2 1 Depto. de Astronoma, Univ. de Guanajuato, Apartado Postal 144, Guanajuato, GTO 36000, Mexico [email protected] 2 ESO, Karl-Schwarzschildstr. 2, D-85748 Garching bei Munchen, Germany [email protected] Received 1998 November 2, accepted 1999 February 1 Abstract: Various dynamically important extragalactic large-scale structures in the local Universe lie behind the Milky Way. Most of these structures (predicted and unexpected) have only recently been made ‘visible’ through dedicated deep surveys at various wavelengths. The wide range of observational searches (optical, near infrared, far infrared, radio and X-ray) for galaxies in the Zone of Avoidance (ZOA) will be reviewed and the uncovered and suspected large-scale structures summarised. Particular emphasis is given to the Great Attractor region where the existence of yet another cluster is suspected (Woudt 1998). Predictions from reconstructions of the density eld in the ZOA are discussed and compared with observational evidence. Although no major structures are predicted out to about v < 10, 000 km s 1 for which no observational evidence exists, the comparison between reconstructed density elds and the observed galaxy distribution remain important as they allow derivations of the density and biasing parameters. Keywords: zone of avoidance — surveys — ISM: dust, extinction — large-scale structure of universe 1 Introduction 2 Observational Surveys in Zone of Avoidance In the last few years, much progress has been 2.1 Optical Surveys achieved in uncovering the galaxy distribution behind the Milky Way through various multi-wavelength Systematic optical galaxy catalogues are generally approaches. These sometimes quite tedious tasks limited to the largest galaxies (typically with 0 are necessary in order to understand the dynamics diameters D > 1 , e.g. Lauberts 1982). These in the nearby Universe and answer the question catalogues become, however, increasingly incomplete whether the perturbations on the smooth Hubble as the dust thickens, creating a ‘Zone of Avoidance’ in expansion, such as the dipole in the Cosmic Microwave the distribution of galaxies of roughly 25% of the sky. Background and other velocity ow elds, can be fully Systematically deeper searches for partially obscured explained by the irregular galaxy distribution, i.e. galaxies—down to fainter magnitudes and smaller mass distribution if galaxies are fair tracers of mass. dimensions compared to existing catalogues—were In Section 2, the various observational methods performed with the aim of reducing this ZOA. These are described and the large-scale structures (LSS) surveys are not biased with respect to any particular uncovered to date summarised. With respect to HI morphological type. and near infrared surveys, only their characteristics— Most of the ZOA has meanwhile been surveyed advantages, limitations and selection eects—in (cf. Figure 1 in Kraan-Korteweg 1998), revealing context to other approaches are discussed as specic many galaxy overdensities uncorrelated with the surveys and results are presented in detail elsewhere patchy, optical extinction distribution. Analysing in this volume (cf. Henning et al. 1999; Rivers et the galaxy density as a function of the galaxy size, al. 1999; Juraszek 1999; Schroder et al. 1999). In magnitude and/or morphology in combination with the last section, theoretical predictions applied to the foreground extinction has led to the identication the recent deeper sampled galaxy surveys covering of various important large-scale structures and their volumes out to v 10000 s1 are reviewed, to see approximate distances. Although the ZOA has been whether they give new indications of unknown or considerably reduced in this way (to about 10% unsuspected prominent structures in the ZOA. of the sky), this method does not nd galaxies in qAstronomical Society of Australia 1999 1323-3580/99/010053$05.00 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.33.19, on 29 Sep 2021 at 01:55:10, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1071/AS99053 54 R. C. Kraan-Korteweg & P. A. Woudt m Figure 1—A comparison of the rich A3627 cluster (AB 1 .5) and the suspected PKS1343 m cluster (AB 12 ) in the GA region. Small dots are optically identied galaxies and large dots galaxies detected in the shallow Multibeam ZOA survey. The top panels display the sky 1 distribution, where the inner circle marks the Abell radius RA =3h50 Mpc, the bottom panel the redshift distribution as a function of distance to the central radio source. the thickest extinction layers of the Milky Way, i.e. The connection of the Perseus–Pisces superclus- where the optical extinction exceeds 4–5 magnitudes ter across the ZOA to the cluster A569, suspected at Galactic latitudes below b < 5 . by Focardi, Marano & Vettolani in 1984, was con- Redshift follow-ups of well-dened samples are rmed by Chamaraux et al. (1990) and Pantoja et important in mapping the large-scale structures al. (1997). The Perseus–Pisces chain folds back into in redshift space. So far, this has been pursued the ZOA at higher redshifts at (195, 10, 7500), extensively in the Perseus-Pisces (PP) supercluster see Marzke, Huchra & Geller (1996) and Pantoja area and in large parts of the southern ZOA. The et al. (1997). prominent new galaxy structures revealed in this In 1992, Kraan-Korteweg & Huchtmeier un- way are summarised below. Their approximate covered a nearby cluster in Puppis (245, 0, 1500) positions (ordered in Galactic latitude) are given as which was later shown by Lahav et al. (1993) to (`, b, v), with v in units of km s1: contribute a not insignicant component to the Behind the Galactic Bulge at (0.5, 9.5, 8500), peculiar z-motion of the Local Group. Wakamatsu et al. (1994) identied the rich Ophiuchus Kraan-Korteweg et al. (1994) presented evidence cluster (or supercluster) with some evidence of it for a continous lamentary structure extending over being linked to the adjacent slightly more distant 30 on the sky from the Hydra and Antlia clusters Hercules cluster. across the ZOA, intersecting the Galactic Plane at At (`, b) (33, 5 15), Marzke, Huchra (280, 0, 3000). At the same longitudes, they noted & Geller (1996) and Roman et al. (1998) found signicant clustering at 15,000 s1, indicative of evidence for a nearby cluster close to the Local Void a connection between the Horologium and Shapley at 1500 s1, as well as a prominent cluster behind clusters a hundred degrees apart in the sky. the Local Void at 7500 km s1. The nearby cluster Kraan-Korteweg & Woudt (1993) uncovered is independently supported by data from the blind a shallow but extended supercluster in Vela at ZOA HI survey (Henning et al. 1999). (285 , 6 , 6000). Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.33.19, on 29 Sep 2021 at 01:55:10, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1071/AS99053 Large-scale Structures behind Milky Way 55 Next to the massive cluster A3627 at the core of i.e. the soft X-ray emission is totally absorbed. the Great Attractor (clustering in the Great Attractor However, extended diuse hard X-ray emission at region is discussed in the next section), Woudt (1998) the position of PKS1343601 has been detected discovered a cluster at (306, 6, 6200) called the with ASCA. The excess ux, kT =39 keV is far Cen–Crux cluster, and a more distant cluster, the too large for it to be associated with a galactic halo Ara cluster at (329, 9, 15000). The latter might surrounding the host galaxy, hence it might be due be connected to the Triangulum–Australis cluster. to the Inverse Compton process—or indicative of emission from a cluster. 2.1.1 Clustering within the Great Attractor Region As this prospective cluster is so heavily obscured, Recent consensus is that the Great Attractor (GA) little data are available to substantiate the existence is probably an extended region ( 40 40 )of of this cluster. In Figure 1, a comparison of the moderately enhanced galaxy density (Lynden-Bell A3627 cluster at (325.3, 7.2, 4882) and a mean 1991; Hudson 1994) centred behind the Galactic extinction in the blue of 1m.5 is compared to the Plane at (`, b, v) (320 , 0 , 4500) (Kolatt, Dekel prospective PKS1343 cluster at (309.7, +1.7, 3872) & Lahav 1995). with an extinction of 12m. The top panel shows both Based on a deep optical galaxy search and sky distributions. One can clearly see that at the low subsequent redshift follow-ups, Kraan-Korteweg et Galactic latitude of the suspected cluster PKS1343, al. (1996) and Woudt (1998) have clearly shown the optical galaxy survey could not retrieve the that the Norma cluster, A3627, at (325.3, 7.2, underlying galaxy distribution, especially not within 4882) is the most massive galaxy cluster in the the Abell radius (the inner circle in the top right GA region known to date and probably marks the panel of Figure 1) of the suspected cluster. If previously unidentied but predicted density-peak at PKS1343601 marks the dynamical centre of the the bottom of the potential well of the GA overdensity. cluster, then the Abell radius, dened as 1.7/0 z, The prominence of this cluster has independently where z is the redshift, corresponds to 2.2 on the been conrmed by ROSAT observations: the Norma sky at the redshift-distance of PKS1343601. cluster ranks as the sixth brightest X-ray cluster in the Interestingly enough, the shallow blind ZOA- sky (Bohringer et al.
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