The Spatial Distribution of Nearby Galaxy Clusters in the Northern and Southern Galactic Hemispheres

Abstract

We compare the spatial distributions of galaxy clusters in the northern and southern galactic hemispheres, and the Abell and ACO clusters distributions. We perform a statistical (correlation and cluster) analysis of a sample of Abell and ACO galaxy clusters in the southern galactic hemisphere. We compare these results with a symmetric sample at northern galactic latitude taken from Postman et al. (1992). For the northern sample, we substantially confirm the results of Postman et al. We find that the two-point spatial correlation function of northern and southern clusters is comparable, with mean correlation length 19.6 Mpc and slope -1.8 positive up to about 45 Mpc. Percolation properties are remarkably similar in the northern and southern cluster samples. We give also a catalog of superclusters. In the south galactic hemisphere the main feature is a very rich, extended supercluster in the Horologium region at a redshift 0.06, near to a large void.