A Giant Arc on the Sky

Abstract

We present the serendipitous discovery of a `Giant Arc on the Sky' at $z\sim 0.8$. The Giant Arc (GA) spans $\sim 1$ Gpc (proper size, present epoch), and appears to be almost symmetrical on the sky. It was discovered via intervening MgII absorbers in the spectra of background quasars, using the catalogues of Zhu \& Ménard. The use of MgII absorbers represents a new approach to the investigation of large-scale structures (LSSs) at redshifts $0.45\lesssim z\lesssim 2.25$. We present the observational properties of the GA, and we assess it statistically using methods based on: (i) single-linkage hierarchical clustering ($\sim 4.5\sigma$); (ii) the Cuzick-Edwards test ($\sim 3.0\sigma$); and (iii) power spectrum analysis ($\sim 4.8\sigma$). Each of these methods has distinctive attributes and powers, and we advise considering the evidence from the ensemble. We discuss our approaches to mitigating any {\it post-hoc} aspects of analysing significance after discovery. The overdensity of the GA is $\delta \rho /\rho \sim 1.3\pm 0.3$. The GA is the newest and one of the largest of a steadily accumulating set of very large LSSs that may (cautiously) challenge the Cosmological Principle, upon which the `standard model' of cosmology is founded. Conceivably, the GA is the precursor of a structure like the Sloan Great Wall (but the GA is about twice the size), seen when the Universe was about half its present age.

Accepted for MNRAS

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• Spatially Homogeneous Universes with Late-Time Anisotropy
• The maximum extent of the filaments and sheets in the cosmic web: an analysis of the SDSS DR17
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• The Hidden Role of Anisotropies in Shaping Structure Formation in Cosmological N-Body Simulations
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• Constraining the Hubble parameter with the 21 cm brightness temperature signal in a universe with inhomogeneities
• Reanalysing large-scale structure using an updated gamma-ray burst spatial density approach
• Tracing the high-z cosmic web with Quaia: catalogues of voids and clusters in the quasar distribution
• Backreaction in cosmic screening approach
• Time evolution of the mutual information between disjoint regions in the Universe
• The Manticore Project II: Bayesian digital twins of cosmic structure across the SDSS and BOSS volumes