Friday, December 19, 2008

"Axis of Evil"

Does the Universe Have a Handedness?
In this article I extend an earlier study of spiral galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) to investigate whether the universe has an overall handedness. A preference for spiral galaxies in one sector of the sky to be left-handed or right-handed spirals would indicate a parity-violating asymmetry in the overall universe and a preferred axis. The previous study used 2616 spiral galaxies with redshifts <0.04 and identified handedness. The new study uses 15872 with redshifts <0.085 and obtains very similar results to the first with a signal exceeding 5 sigma, corresponding to a probability of 2.5x10-7 for occurring by chance. The axis of the dipole asymmetry lies at approx. (l, b) =(32d,69d), roughly along that of our Galaxy and close to the so-called "Axis of Evil".

1 comment:

Ana said...

Hey,

I just wanted to let you know that I'm making an award to you, in this, the inaugural ceremony (for wont of a better word). Please see:

http://justana-justana.blogspot.com/2008/12/inaugural-hoy-awards.html

Strictly speaking you're not supposed to get this until Christmas Day, but we figured a bunch of people might be away visting, and whatnot, at that time, so we're sending them out, now.
Anyway, Merry Christmas!
Ana