Correlated residuals in Tully-Fisher and Fundamental Plane relations and their impact on peculiar velocity measurements

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Dumerchat, Tyann, Angulo, Raul E., Bautista, Julian, Aguayo, Cesar, Bose, Sownak, Hernquist, Lars
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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author Dumerchat, Tyann
Angulo, Raul E.
Bautista, Julian
Aguayo, Cesar
Bose, Sownak
Hernquist, Lars
author_facet Dumerchat, Tyann
Angulo, Raul E.
Bautista, Julian
Aguayo, Cesar
Bose, Sownak
Hernquist, Lars
contents The Tully-Fisher (TF) and Fundamental Plane (FP) relations are widely used to infer extragalactic distances and peculiar velocities, enabling measurements of large-scale velocity statistics and cosmological parameters. Using the Millennium-TNG hydrodynamical simulation, we assess the accuracy of these methods in the presence of realistic galaxy formation physics. We find that, while the 2-point statistics of velocities are reliably inferred on scales larger than $\sim10\,\hMpc$, significant systematic deviations arise on smaller scales. These deviations originate from spatially correlated residuals in the TF and FP relations, driven by correlations between galaxy structural properties, star-formation history, and the local environment. As a result, TF- and FP-inferred velocity fields exhibit spurious correlations with the galaxy density field that cannot be explained by random scatter alone. We show that extending the TF and FP relations to include additional galaxy properties -- such as star formation rate, gas mass, and stellar mass -- mitigate these environmental correlations, particularly for late-type galaxies. Our results demonstrate that galaxy formation physics induces significant systematics in peculiar velocity measurements on non-linear scales, and that neglecting these effects may bias cosmological analyses.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2602_23033
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Correlated residuals in Tully-Fisher and Fundamental Plane relations and their impact on peculiar velocity measurements
Dumerchat, Tyann
Angulo, Raul E.
Bautista, Julian
Aguayo, Cesar
Bose, Sownak
Hernquist, Lars
Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
The Tully-Fisher (TF) and Fundamental Plane (FP) relations are widely used to infer extragalactic distances and peculiar velocities, enabling measurements of large-scale velocity statistics and cosmological parameters. Using the Millennium-TNG hydrodynamical simulation, we assess the accuracy of these methods in the presence of realistic galaxy formation physics. We find that, while the 2-point statistics of velocities are reliably inferred on scales larger than $\sim10\,\hMpc$, significant systematic deviations arise on smaller scales. These deviations originate from spatially correlated residuals in the TF and FP relations, driven by correlations between galaxy structural properties, star-formation history, and the local environment. As a result, TF- and FP-inferred velocity fields exhibit spurious correlations with the galaxy density field that cannot be explained by random scatter alone. We show that extending the TF and FP relations to include additional galaxy properties -- such as star formation rate, gas mass, and stellar mass -- mitigate these environmental correlations, particularly for late-type galaxies. Our results demonstrate that galaxy formation physics induces significant systematics in peculiar velocity measurements on non-linear scales, and that neglecting these effects may bias cosmological analyses.
title Correlated residuals in Tully-Fisher and Fundamental Plane relations and their impact on peculiar velocity measurements
topic Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.23033