A&A 560, A90 (2013) Astronomy DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361/201321880 & c ESO 2013 Astrophysics Measuring cosmic bulk flows with Type Ia supernovae from the Nearby Supernova Factory U. Feindt1, M. Kerschhaggl1 M. Kowalski1, G. Aldering2, P. Antilogus3, C. Aragon2, S. Bailey2, C. Baltay4, S. Bongard3, C. Buton1, A. Canto3, F. Cellier-Holzem3, M. Childress5, N. Chotard6, Y. Copin6, H. K. Fakhouri2;7, E. Gangler6, J. Guy3, A. Kim2, P. Nugent8;9, J. Nordin2;10, K. Paech1, R. Pain3, E. Pecontal11, R. Pereira6, S. Perlmutter2;7, D. Rabinowitz4, M. Rigault6, K. Runge2, C. Saunders2, R. Scalzo5, G. Smadja6, C. Tao12;13, R. C. Thomas8, B. A. Weaver14, and C. Wu3;15 1 Physikalisches Institut, Universität Bonn, Nußallee 12, 53115 Bonn, Germany e-mail: [feindt;mkersch]@physik.uni-bonn.de 2 Physics Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, 1 Cyclotron Road, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA 3 Laboratoire de Physique Nucléaire et des Hautes Énergies, Université Pierre et Marie Curie Paris 6, Université Paris Diderot Paris 7, CNRS-IN2P3, 4 place Jussieu, 75252 Paris Cedex 05, France 4 Department of Physics, Yale University, New Haven, CT, 06250-8121, USA 5 Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Australian National University, ACT 2611 Canberra, Australia 6 Université de Lyon, Université de Lyon 1, Villeurbanne, CNRS/IN2P3, Institut de Physique Nucléaire de Lyon, 69622 Lyon, France 7 Department of Physics, University of California Berkeley, 366 LeConte Hall MC 7300, Berkeley, CA 94720-7300, USA 8 Computational Cosmology Center, Computational Research Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, 1 Cyclotron Road MS 50B-4206, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA 9 Department of Astronomy, B-20 Hearst Field Annex # 3411, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720-3411, USA 10 Space Sciences Laboratory, University of California Berkeley, 7 Gauss Way, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA 11 Centre de Recherche Astronomique de Lyon, Université Lyon 1, 9 Avenue Charles André, 69561 Saint-Genis-Laval Cedex, France 12 Centre de Physique des Particules de Marseille, 163 avenue de Luminy, Case 902, 13288 Marseille Cedex 09, France 13 Tsinghua Center for Astrophysics, Tsinghua University, 100084 Beijing, PR China 14 Center for Cosmology and Particle Physics, New York University, 4 Washington Place, New York, NY 10003, USA 15 National Astronomical Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 100012 Beijing, PR China Received 12 May 2013 / Accepted 10 October 2013 ABSTRACT Context. Our Local Group of galaxies appears to be moving relative to the cosmic microwave background with the source of the peculiar motion still uncertain. While in the past this has been studied mostly using galaxies as distance indicators, the weight of Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) has increased recently with the continuously improving statistics of available low-redshift supernovae. Aims. We measured the bulk flow in the nearby universe (0:015 < z < 0:1) using 117 SNe Ia observed by the Nearby Supernova Factory, as well as the Union2 compilation of SN Ia data already in the literature. Methods. The bulk flow velocity was determined from SN data binned in redshift shells by including a coherent motion (dipole) in a cosmological fit. Additionally, a method of spatially smoothing the Hubble residuals was used to verify the results of the dipole fit. To constrain the location and mass of a potential mass concentration (e.g., the Shapley supercluster) responsible for the peculiar motion, we fit a Hubble law modified by adding an additional mass concentration. Results. The analysis shows a bulk flow that is consistent with the direction of the CMB dipole up to z ∼ 0:06, thereby doubling the volume over which conventional distance measures are sensitive to a bulk flow. We see no significant turnover behind the center of the Shapley supercluster. A simple attractor model in the proximity of the Shapley supercluster is only marginally consistent with our data, suggesting the need for another, more distant source. In the redshift shell 0:06 < z < 0:1, we constrain the bulk flow velocity to ≤240 km s−1 (68% confidence level) for the direction of the CMB dipole, in contradiction to recent claims of the existence of a large-amplitude dark flow. Key words. cosmology: observations – cosmological parameters – large-scale structure of Universe – supernovae: general 1. Introduction a nearby overdensity is widely accepted as the source of the LG motion, the exact contribution of known overdensities is The Copernican principle which implies an isotropic Universe still under debate since the amplitude of vLG has not been fully on large scales, is one of the major conceptual building blocks recovered by peculiar velocity measurements in the local uni- of modern cosmology. In this picture, an important task is to verse. On large scales – where the peculiar velocity data be- explain the apparent motion of our Local Group of galaxies come sparser and noisier, thus precluding the reconstruction of a (LG) relative to the cosmic microwave background (CMB) with full peculiar velocity field – the mass distribution can be inves- −1 ◦ ◦ tigated by measuring bulk flows, i.e., coherent motion in large vLG = 627±22 km s toward the direction l = 276 and b = 30 (Kogut et al. 1993). While the gravitational attraction towards volumes. Article published by EDP Sciences A90, page 1 of 12 A&A 560, A90 (2013) Previous studies of the local bulk flow show possible tension 4534 galaxy distances and find that the mean of the Hubble pa- between two sets of results: some analyses have reported pos- rameter of consecutive redshift shells is more compatible with sible anomalously large bulk flows on scales of ∼100 h−1 Mpc its global value when using the LG rather than the CMB as rest (Hudson et al. 2004; Watkins et al. 2009; Lavaux et al. 2010; frame. In addition to a local boost, it is suggested that the CMB Colin et al. 2011; Macaulay et al. 2012), while others find the dipole could be attributed to differences in the apparent distance bulk flow to be consistent with the expectation from ΛCDM to the surface of last scattering mediated by foreground struc- (earliest Courteau et al. 2000; more recently Nusser & Davis tures on the 60 h−1 Mpc scale. 2011; Nusser et al. 2011; Branchini et al. 2012; Turnbull et al. Peculiar velocity fields in the nearby Universe have long 2012; Ma & Scott 2013). Lavaux et al.(2010), for example, been investigated using galaxies as distance indicators, where found in the 2MRS galaxy catalog that the LG velocity vLG and the distance is estimated through the Tully-Fisher relation (Tully the direction towards the CMB dipole could not be recovered & Fisher 1977), the fundamental plane (Djorgovski & Davis for matter restframes at distances less than 120 h−1 Mpc. On the 1987; Dressler et al. 1987) or surface brightness fluctuations other hand, Nusser et al. show for the same catalog and for the (Tonry & Schneider 1988), see, e.g., Watkins et al.(2009) and SF++ galaxy catalog that the bulk flow amplitude is consistent Lavaux et al.(2010) and references therein. However, galaxies with ΛCDM expectations (Nusser et al. 2011; Nusser & Davis as distance indicators generally range out around 100 h−1 Mpc 2011). as the accuracy per galaxy becomes low and the observational Over larger distances, Kashlinsky et al.(2008) reports a cost large. Supernovae of Type Ia (SNe Ia), on the other hand, strong and coherent bulk flow out to d & 300 h−1 Mpc based are bright standardizable candles, i.e., showing a brightness dis- on measurements of the kinematic Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect of persion of ∼10% after empirical corrections (Phillips 1993), and X-ray clusters. According to their latest results (Kashlinsky et al. thus are alternative tracers of bulk flow motions exceeding by far 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012), the bulk flow is ∼1000 km s−1 the redshift range of galaxy distance indicators. While bright- in the direction of the CMB dipole up to a distance of at ness and standardizability favor SNe Ia, the lack of large sam- least ∼800 Mpc. The large-scale structure formation predicted ples has limited their use to only a few studies so far. Early by the ΛCDM model does not explain such high values for studies of nearby SN data showed that the motion of the LG bulk flows at these distances. A possible explanation for this is consistent with the measured dipole seen in the CMB (Riess “dark flow” is a tilt imprinted on our horizon by pre-inflationary et al. 1995), and this has been confirmed a number of times since inhomogeneities (Grishchuk & Zeldovich 1978; Turner 1991). then (Haugbølle et al. 2007; Gordon et al. 2007, 2008; Weyant However, this claim has been questioned in various studies et al. 2011). One of the most recent studies of a dataset of 245 (Keisler 2009; Osborne et al. 2011; Mody & Hajian 2012; nearby SNe Ia resulted in a bulk flow towards l = 319◦ ± 18◦, Lavaux et al. 2013) and recently possibly rejected by the Planck b = 7◦ ± 14◦ at a rate of 249 ± 76 km s−1 (Turnbull et al. Collaboration(2013) 1. 2012). Moreover, Schwarz & Weinhorst(2007) discovered a sta- At shorter distances, the mass distribution can be studied tistically significant hemispheric anisotropy at >95% confidence more precisely by reconstructing the peculiar velocity field using level in several SN Ia datasets, for SNe at z < 0:2. They found an large galaxy catalogs (Erdogdu˘ et al. 2006; Lavaux et al. 2010). asymmetry between the north and south equatorial hemispheres. The contribution of overdensities on those scales to the LG mo- Kalus et al.(2013) recently verified with a larger dataset that the tion has long been studied. Lynden-Bell et al.(1988) measured asymmetry does not contradict ΛCDM expectations.