A high-significance detection of primordial tidal torque imprints

Abstract

Tidal-torque theory predicts that galaxy angular momenta are imprinted by the primordial tidal field acting on proto-structures and that they can retain information about the early Universe through cosmic evolution. Here we test this prediction by comparing observed galaxy angular momentum vectors with those predicted from the primordial density field reconstructed by ELUCID for the nearby Universe. Among the galaxy populations considered, the gas component of central massive elliptical galaxies provides the clearest signal, exhibiting a strong direction correlation at a significance of about $7\sigma$. These results provide a robust observational evidence for tidal-torque theory and open a window for cosmological measurements of neutrino mass and other cosmological parameters.

23 pages, 8 figures. Published in Nature Astronomy. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-026-02948-w

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