[Weltevreden SA (Dana)]

Yikes what a tour de force. Boggling reseach for a one-man paper. From the data I expected scads of co-authors and an army of MA interns beavering away anonymously in the physics library. This paper is sure to spawn a lot of re-examinations and additional detailed local studies. I hope globular, dwarf galaxy, and dark matter studies soon follow from other authors, as these will add a significant body of detail where it is most needed. I notice in Fig 3 that all the massive Gxx except for the MW-M31 group lie near the rim, making it more like a torus. There's also a pronounced binarism, most of it aligned radially to the Council's centre. I can't quite tell if the centre point in Fig 3 is the centre of mass or the volumetric centre; the text isn't specific. Mr. McCall doesn't say much about dark matter distribution—understandable considering all the rest of his detail. I wonder if the DM centre of mass is coincident with the Council's centre of mass or whether the DM distribution is clumpy. Looks to be clumpy. The centre of luminosity is a fair remove from the centre of the diagram; also an interesting anomaly counterintuitive to what one would expect. I would love to see detailed follow-ups about the 3D volumes of dwarf galaxies arrayed around the major groups, since the Local Group's dwarf structure is cylindrical rather than toroidal, and at a high incidence angle from the MW-M31 3d axis. The LG dwarfs additionally have significant mass distribution anomalies, with the dSphs lying within the DM tidal radius of the Local Groups and the dIrrs well outside. Dwarfs have roughly 10 times the DM mass per baryon mass than luminous galaxies. I sure hope Robert weighs in on this thread, as he eats this kind of paper for breakfast. Thanks again for bringing this to our attention, Glen.

I also notice with dismay the author's line in the Acknowledgments, "Particular gratitude is expressed to. . . whose attention to the author’s health allowed this work to be completed."

Hope for the best.

=Dana