Filaments of Galaxies: An Observational Viewpoint.

Kevin Pimbblet
University of Queensland
Department of Physics

Hierarchical structure formation models have long predicted that galaxy clusters grow through repeated mergers with other galaxy clusters and galaxy groups and continuous accretion of their surrounding matter. Moreover, the accretion process usually happens in a very non-isotropic manner: galaxy filaments funnel matter onto large clusters along preferred directions. Beyond the cluster core (> few virial radii), galaxy filaments are predicted and observed to inter-connect many galaxy clusters in a complex, web-like manner. This presentation will review motives for wanting to detect and study filaments of galaxies; current methods utilized and their results; and advantages of multi-scale approaches to this work.

Presentation (PDF File) Presentation (PowerPoint File)

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