Scaling of voids and fractality in the galaxy distribution

Details Scaling of voids and fractality in the galaxy distribution Scaling of voids and fractality in the galaxy distribution

2002-05-13

arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0205188v2

Mon.Not.Roy.Astron.Soc.335:977,2002

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

8 pages, 5 figures, to appear in MNRAS; improved Fig.4

Scientific paper

10.1046/j.1365-8711.2002.05676.x

We study here, from first principles, what properties of voids are to be expected in a fractal point distribution and how the void distribution is related to its morphology. We show this relation in various examples and apply our results to the distribution of galaxies. If the distribution of galaxies forms a fractal set, then this property results in a number of scaling laws to be fulfilled by voids. Consider a fractal set of dimension $D$ and its set of voids. If voids are ordered according to decreasing sizes (largest void has rank R=1, second largest R=2 and so on), then a relation between size $\Lambda$ and rank of the form $\Lambda (R) \propto R^{-z}$ must hold, with $z = d/D$, and where $d$ is the euclidean dimension of the space where the fractal is embedded. The physical restriction $D < d$ means that $z > 1$ in a fractal set. The average size $\bar \Lambda$ of voids depends on the upper ($\Lambda_u$) and the lower ($\Lambda_l$) cut-off as ${\bar \Lambda} \propto \Lambda_u^{1-D/d} \Lambda_l^{D/d}$. Current analysis of void sizes in the galaxy distribution do not show evidence of a fractal distribution, but are insufficient to rule it out. We identify possible shortcomings of current void searching algorithms, such as changes of shape in voids at different scales or merging of voids, and propose modifications useful to test fractality in the galaxy distribution.

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