Galaxy Spin Correlations in the Tully Catalogue of Nearby Galaxies

Jounghun Lee 
Institute of Astronomy & Astrophysics
Academia Sinica

In this talk I report a tentative observational detection of intrinsic 
galaxy spin correlation in the Tully catalog of nearby galaxies.   
The intrinsic galaxy spin correlation, if it exists, indicates the existence 
of the preferential galaxy spin alignments due to the initial tidal torquing 
on the proto-galactic sites from the surrounding matter.  In this respect it 
differs from the extrinsic galaxy spin correlation due the weak gravitational 
lensing. 

The observed galaxy spin correlation turns out to be significant at the 97% 
confidence level, detected out to a few Mpc. The observed correlation is 
consistent with the theoretical prediction based on the gravitational 
instability picture of galaxy formation.  The strength of intrinsic spin 
correlation may be sufficient to significantly affect blank field of weak 
lensing searches.