A Test of the Lauer--Postman Bulk Flow

Abstract

We use Tully--Fisher distances for a sample of field late spiral galaxies to test the Lauer and Postman (1994; hereinafter LP) result suggestive of a bulk flow with respect to the Cosmic Microwave Background reference frame, of amplitude of +689 km/s in the direction l=343, b=+52. A total of 432 galaxies are used, subdivided between two cones, of 30deg semiaperture each and pointed respectively toward the apex and antapex of the LP motion. The peculiar velocities in the two data sets are inconsistent with a bulk flow of the amplitude claimed by LP. When combined in opposition, the peculiar velocity medians in shells of constant redshift width are never larger than half the amplitude of the LP bulk flow. Out to 5000 km/s the median bulk velocity in the LP apex--antapex cones is about 200 km/s or less, dropping to a value indistinguishable from zero beyond that distance. It can be excluded that field spiral galaxies within 8000 km/s partake of a bulk flow of the amplitude and direction reported by LP.

9 pages including figures embedded in text; uses AAS LaTex and psfig

Cited by in corpus (14)

• Redshift-Space Distortions and the Real-Space Clustering of Different Galaxy Types
• A Large-Scale Bulk Flow of Galaxy Clusters
• The Velocity Field from Type Ia Supernovae Matches the Gravity Field from Galaxy Surveys
• Peculiar Velocity Dipoles of Field Galaxies
• The Motions of Clusters of Galaxies and the Dipoles of the Peculiar Velocity Field
• The LCO/Palomar 10,000 km/sec Cluster Survey. II. Constraints on Large-Scale Streaming
• How accurately can the SZ effect measure peculiar cluster velocities and bulk flows?
• The X-ray Cluster Dipole
• The Mount Stromlo Abell Cluster Supernova Search
• Seeking the Local Convergence Depth. II. TF Observations of the Clusters A114, A119, A194, A2295, A2457, A2806, A3193, A3381, AND A3744
• Cluster versus POTENT Density and Velocity Fields: Cluster Biasing and Omega
• Uneven flows: On cosmic bulk flows, local observers, and gravity
• Flows on scales of 150 Mpc?
• Sample variance of the cosmic velocity field