Large-scale flows in the local Universe

Peculiar velocity measurements of 2500 southern spiral galaxies show large-scale flows in the direction of the Hydra-Centaurus clusters which fully participate in the flow themselves. The flow is not uniform over this region and seems to be associated with the denser regions which participate in the flow of amplitude about 400km/s. In the less dense regions the flow is small or non-existent. This makes the flow quite asymmetric and inconsistent with that expected from large-scale, parallel streaming flow that includes all galaxies out to 6000km/s as previously thought. The flow cannot be modelled by a Great Attractor at 4300km/s or the Centaurus clusters at 3500km/s. Indeed, from the density maps derived from the redshift surveys of ''optical'' and IRAS galaxies, it is difficult to see how the mass concentrations can be responsible particularly as they themselves participate in the Row. These results bring into question the generally accepted reason for the peculiar velocities of galaxies that they arise solely as a consequence of infall into the dense regions of the universe. To the N. of the Great Attractor region, the now increases and shows no sign of diminishing out to the redshift limit of 8000km/s in this direction. We may have detected now in the nearest section of the Great Wall.