New structure in the Shapley supercluster

M. J. Drinkwater*, D. Proust, Q. A. Parker, H. Quintana, E. Slezak

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    18 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    We present new radial velocities for 306 bright (R < 16) galaxies in a 77 deg2 region of the Shapley supercluster, measured with the FLAIR-11 spectrograph on the UK Schmidt Telescope. The galaxies we measured were uniformly distributed over the survey area, in contrast to previous samples which were concentrated in several rich Abell clusters. Most of the galaxies (230) were members of the Shapley supercluster: they trace out two previously unknown sheets of galaxies linking the Abell clusters of the supercluster. In a 44 deg2 area of the supercluster excluding the Abell clusters, these sheets alone represent an overdensity of a factor of 2·0 ± 0·2 compared to a uniform galaxy distribution. The supercluster is not flattened in the Declination direction as has been suggested in previous papers. Within our survey area the new galaxies contribute an additional 50% to the known contents of the Shapley supercluster, with a corresponding increase in its contribution to the motion of the Local Group.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)113-123
    Number of pages11
    JournalPublications of the Astronomical Society of Australia
    Volume16
    Issue number2
    Publication statusPublished - Jul 1999

    Keywords

    • Galaxies: clusters, distances and redshifts
    • Large-scale structure of universe

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