Radio Galaxy Zoo: cosmological alignment of radio sources

We study the mutual alignment of radio sources within two surveys, Faint Images of the Radio Sky at Twenty-centimetres (FIRST) and TIFR GMRT Sky Survey (TGSS). This is done by producing two position angle catalogues containing the preferential directions of respectively 30 059 and 11 674 extended sources distributed over more than 7000 and 17 000 deg². The identification of the sources in the FIRST sample was performed in advance by volunteers of the Radio Galaxy Zoo (RGZ) project, while for the TGSS sample it is the result of an automated process presented here. After taking into account systematic effects, marginal evidence of a local alignment on scales smaller than 2.5 deg is found in the FIRST sample. The probability of this happening by chance is found to be less than 2 per cent. Further study suggests that on scales up to 1.5 deg the alignment is maximal. For one third of the sources, the RGZ volunteers identified an optical counterpart. Assuming a flat Λ cold dark matter cosmology with Ωm=0.31,ΩΛ=0.69 Ωm=0.31,ΩΛ=0.69 , we convert the maximum angular scale on which alignment is seen into a physical scale in the range [19, 38] Mpc h−170 h70⁻¹ . This result supports recent evidence reported by Taylor and Jagannathan of radio jet alignment in the 1.4 deg² ELAIS N1 field observed with the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope. The TGSS sample is found to be too sparsely populated to manifest a similar signal.