An observational detection of the bridge effect of void filaments

Abstract: The bridge effect of void filaments is a phrase coined by Park & Lee (2009b) to explain the correlations found in a numerical experiment between the luminosity of the void galaxies and the degree of the straightness of their host filaments. Their numerical finding implies that a straight void filament provides a narrow channel for the efficient transportation of gas and matter particles from the surroundings into the void galaxies. Analyzing the Sloan void catalog constructed by Pan et al (2012), we identify the filamentary structures in void regions and determine the specific size of each void filament as a measure of its straightness. To avoid possible spurious signals caused by the Malmquist bias, we consider only those void filaments whose redshifts are in the range of 0=< z <= 0.02 and find a clear tendency that the void galaxies located in the more straight filaments are on average more luminous, which is in qualitative agreement with the numerical prediction. It is also shown that the strength of correlation increases with the number of the member galaxies of the void filaments, which can be physically understood on the grounds that the more stretched filaments can connect the dense surroundings even to the galaxies located deep in the central parts of the voids. This observational evidence may provide a key clue to the puzzling issue of why the void galaxies have higher specific star formation rates and bluer colors than their wall counterparts.