Huge-LQG From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Map of Huge-LQG Quasar 3C 273 Above: Map of the Huge-LQG noted by black circles, adjacent to the ClowesCampusan o LQG in red crosses. Map is by Roger Clowes of University of Central Lancashire . Bottom: Image of the bright quasar 3C 273. Each black circle and red cross on the map is a quasar similar to this one. The Huge Large Quasar Group, (Huge-LQG, also called U1.27) is a possible structu re or pseudo-structure of 73 quasars, referred to as a large quasar group, that measures about 4 billion light-years across. At its discovery, it was identified as the largest and the most massive known structure in the observable universe, [1][2][3] though it has been superseded by the Hercules-Corona Borealis Great Wa ll at 10 billion light-years. There are also issues about its structure (see Dis pute section below). Contents 1 Discovery 2 Characteristics 3 Cosmological principle 4 Dispute 5 See also 6 References 7 Further reading 8 External links Discovery[edit] Roger G. Clowes, together with colleagues from the University of Central Lancash ire in Preston, United Kingdom, has reported on January 11, 2013 a grouping of q uasars within the vicinity of the constellation Leo. They used data from the DR7 QSO catalogue of the comprehensive Sloan Digital Sky Survey, a major multi-imagi ng and spectroscopic redshift survey of the sky. They reported that the grouping was, as they announced, the largest known structure in the observable universe. The structure was initially discovered in November 2012 and took two months of verification before its announcement. News about the structure's announcement sp read worldwide, and has received great attention on the scientific community. Characteristics[edit] The Huge-LQG was estimated to be about 1.24 Gpc in length, by 640 Mpc and 370 Mp c on the other dimensions, and contains 73 quasars, respectively.[4] Quasars are very luminous active galactic nuclei, thought to be supermassive black holes fe eding on matter. Since they are only found in dense regions of the universe, qua sars can be used to find overdensities of matter within the universe. It has the approximate binding mass of 6.1×1018 (6.1 trillion (long scale) or 6.1 quintillio n (short scale)) M?. The Huge-LQG was initially named U1.27 due to its average r edshift of 1.27, placing its distance at about 9 billion light-years from Earth. [5] The Huge-LQG is 615Mpc from the ClowesCampusano LQG (U1.28), a group of 34 quasar s also discovered by Clowes in 1991. Cosmological principle[edit] Main article: Cosmological principle In Clowes' initial announcement of the structure, he has reported that the struc ture has contradicted the cosmological principle. The cosmological principle imp lies that at sufficiently large scales, the universe is approximately homogeneou s, meaning that the statistical fluctuations in quantities such as the matter de nsity between different regions of the universe are small. However, different de finitions exist for the homogeneity scale above which these fluctuations may be considered sufficiently small, and the appropriate definition depends on the con text in which it is used. Jaswant Yadav et al. have suggested a definition of th e homogeneity scale based on the fractal dimension of the universe; they conclud e that, according to this definition, an upper limit for the homogeneity scale i n the universe is 260/h Mpc.[6] Some studies that have attempted to measure the homogeneity scale according to this definition have found values in the range 701 30/h Mpc.[7][8][9] The Sloan Great Wall, discovered in 2003, has a length of 423Mpc,[10] which is m arginally larger than the homogeneity scale as defined above. The Huge-LQG is three times longer than, and twice as wide as the Yadav et al. u pper limit to the homogeneity scale, and has therefore been claimed to challenge our understanding of the universe on large scales.[3] However, due to the existence of long-range correlations, it is known that struc tures can be found in the distribution of galaxies in the universe that extend o ver scales larger than the homogeneity scale.[11] Dispute[edit] Seshadri Nadathur at the University of Bielefeld, has conducted an even more com prehensive study of the Huge-LQG. After a more detailed study, he announced that contrary to the claim by Clowes about a large clustering, has showed that in hi s new map, that there is no clear clustering of quasars within the vicinity of t he Huge-LQG. The map was actually a similar map created by Clowes above, but inc ludes all the quasars in that region. After performing a number of statistical s tudies on the quasar data, and finding extreme changes in the Huge-LQG membershi p and shape with small changes in the cluster finding parameters, he determined the probability that apparent clusters the size of the Huge-LQG would appear in a random assortment of quasars. He set up 10,000 regions identical in size to th at studied by Clowes, and filled them with randomly distributed quasars with the same position statistics as did the actual quasars in the sky.[9] The data is s upporting the study of the homogeneity scale by Yadav et al.,[6] and that there is therefore no challenge to the cosmological principle. The study also implies that the statistical algorithm used by Clowes to identify the Huge-LQG, when use d to correlate other quasars in the sky, produces more than a thousand clusterin gs identical to the Huge-LQG. While quasars can represent dense regions of the u niverse, one must note that all of the quasars in the sky are evenly distributed , that is, one quasar per few million light years, making their significance as a structure very unlikely. The identification of the Huge-LQG, together with the clusterings identified by Nadathur, is therefore referred to be false positive identifications, or errors in identifying structures, finally arriving to the co nclusion that the Huge-LQG is not a real structure at all. Several questions arouse from the structure's discovery. But it is not told how Clowes detected a clustering of quasars in the region, nor how he found any corr elation of quasars in the region. It is specified, that, not only the structure, but also other LQGs are not real structures at all. Nevertheless, Clowes et al. found independent support for the reality of the str ucture from its coincidence with Mg II absorbers (once-ionised magnesium gas, co mmonly used to probe distant galaxies). The Mg II gas suggests that the Huge-LQG is associated with an enhancement of the mass, rather than being a false positi ve. This point is not discussed by the critical paper.[9] Further support for the reality of the Huge-LQG comes from the work of Hutsemékers et al.[12] in September 2014. They measured the polarization of quasars in the Huge-LQG and found "a remarkable correlation" of the polarization vectors on sca les larger than 500 Mpc. See also[edit] Large-scale structure of the cosmos Galaxy filament Sloan Great Wall PiscesCetus Supercluster Complex CfA2 Great Wall HerculesCorona Borealis Great Wall References[edit] ^ Aron, Jacob. "Largest structure challenges Einstein's smooth cosmos". New Scie ntist. Retrieved 14 January 2013. ^ "Astronomers discover the largest structure in the universe". Royal astronomic al society. Retrieved 2013-01-13. ^ a b Clowes, Roger G.; Harris, Kathryn A.; Raghunathan, Srinivasan; Campusano, Luis E.; Söchting, Ilona K.; Graham, Matthew J. (2013-01-11). "A structure in the early Universe at z ~ 1.3 that exceeds the homogeneity scale of the R-W concorda nce cosmology". Monthly notices of the royal astronomical society 1211 (4): 6256 . arXiv:1211.6256. Bibcode:2013MNRAS.429.2910C. doi:10.1093/mnras/sts497. Retrie ved 14 January 2013. ^ "The Largest Structure in Universe Discovered Quasar Group 4 Billion Light-Yea rs Wide Challenges Current Cosmology". Retrieved 14 January 2013. ^ Prostak, Sergio (11 January 2013). "Universe's Largest Structure Discovered". scinews.com. Retrieved 15 January 2013. ^ a b Yadav, Jaswant; Bagla, J. S.; Khandai, Nishikanta (25 February 2010). "Fra ctal dimension as a measure of the scale of homogeneity". Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 405 (3): 20092015. arXiv:1001.0617. Bibcode:2010MNRAS .405.2009Y. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2966.2010.16612.x. Retrieved 15 January 2013. ^ Hogg, D.W. et al. (2005). "Cosmic Homogeneity Demonstrated with Luminous Red G alaxies". The Astrophysical Journal 624: 5458. arXiv:astro-ph/0411197. Bibcode:20 05ApJ...624...54H. doi:10.1086/429084. ^ Scrimgeour, Morag I. et al. (2012). "The WiggleZ Dark Energy Survey: the trans ition to large-scale cosmic homogeneity". Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomi cal Society 425 (1): 116134. arXiv:1205.6812. Bibcode:2012MNRAS.425..116S. doi:10 .1111/j.1365-2966.2012.21402.x. ^ a b c Nadathur, Seshadri, (July 2013) "Seeing patterns in noise: gigaparsec-sc ale 'structures' that do not violate homogeneity". Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society in press. arXiv:1306.1700. Bibcode: 2013MNRAS.tmp.1690N doi :10.1093/mnras/stt1028 ^ Gott, J. Richard, III et al. (May 2005). "A Map of the Universe". The Astrophy sical Journal 624 (2): 463484. arXiv:astro-ph/0310571. Bibcode:2005ApJ...624..463 G. doi:10.1086/428890 ^ Gaite, Jose; Dominguez, Alvaro; Perez-Mercader, Juan (1999). "The fractal dist ribution of galaxies and the transition to homogeneity". The Astrophysical Journ al 522: 58. arXiv:astro-ph/9812132. Bibcode:1999ApJ...522L...5G.