A structure in the early Universe at z similar to 1.3 that exceeds the homogeneity scale of the R-W concordance cosmology

Abstract

A large quasar group (LQG) of particularly large size and high membership has been identified in the DR7QSO catalogue of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. It has characteristic size (volume(1/3)) similar to 500 Mpc (proper size, present epoch), longest dimension similar to 1240 Mpc, membership of 73 quasars and mean redshift (z) over bar = 1.27. In terms of both size and membership, it is the most extreme LQG found in the DR7QSO catalogue for the redshift range 1.0 <= z <= 1.8 of our current investigation. Its location on the sky is similar to 8 degrees.8 north (degrees 615 Mpc projected) of the Clowes & Campusano LQG at the same redshift, (z) over bar = 1.28, which is itself one of the more extreme examples. Their boundaries approach to within similar to 2 degrees (similar to 140 Mpc projected). This new, Huge-LQG appears to be the largest structure currently known in the early Universe. Its size suggests incompatibility with the Yadav et al. scale of homogeneity for the concordance cosmology, and thus challenges the assumption of the cosmological principle.