Voids and the Cosmic Web: cosmic depressions & spatial complexity

Abstract

Voids form a prominent aspect of the Megaparsec distribution of galaxies and matter. Not only do they represent a key constituent of the Cosmic Web, they also are one of the cleanest probes and measures of global cosmological parameters. The shape and evolution of voids are highly sensitive to the nature of dark energy, while their substructure and galaxy population provides a direct key to the nature of dark matter. Also, the pristine environment of void interiors is an important testing ground for our understanding of environmental influences on galaxy formation and evolution. In this paper, we review the key aspects of the structure and dynamics of voids, with a particular focus on the hierarchical evolution of the void population. We demonstrate how the rich structural pattern of the Cosmic Web is related to the complex evolution and buildup of voids.

28 pages, 13 figures, Proceedings of IAU Symposium 308 "The Zeldovich Universe: Genesis and Growth of the Cosmic Web", 23-28 June 2014, Tallinn, Estonia; added arxiv reference to journal citation.

References in corpus (14)

• Cosmology at Low Frequencies: The 21 cm Transition and the High-Redshift Universe
• ZOBOV: a parameter-free void-finding algorithm
• The Laniakea supercluster of galaxies
• The Aspen--Amsterdam Void Finder Comparison Project
• Extragalactic Radio Sources and the WMAP Cold Spot
• The darkness that shaped the void: dark energy and cosmic voids
• A measurement of the Alcock-Paczynski effect using cosmic voids in the SDSS
• Detection of a Supervoid Aligned with the Cold Spot of the Cosmic Microwave Background
• Environmental dependence in the ellipsoidal collapse model
• Void Ellipticity Distribution as a Probe of Cosmology
• Alignments of Voids in the Cosmic Web
• A Map of the Integrated Sachs-Wolfe Signal from Luminous Red Galaxies
• Dark matter voids in the SDSS galaxy survey
• The life and death of cosmic voids

Cited by in corpus (5)

• Void replenishment: how voids accrete matter over cosmic history
• Gas accretion and Ram Pressure Stripping of Haloes in Void Walls
• Reconstructing matter profiles of spherically compensated cosmic regions in $\Lambda$CDM cosmology
• Dynamical Evolution of Voids with Surrounding Gravitational Tidal Field
• Detecting and analysing the topology of the cosmic web with spatial clustering algorithms I: Methods