No CrossRef data available.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 May 2016
It is generally believed that on very large scales the distribution of matter in the universe is homogeneous and effectively all the existing theoretical approaches are based on this assumption. However, recent re-analysis of galaxy-galaxy and cluster-cluster correlations by Coleman and Pietronero (1992, hereafter CP) and Luo and Schramm (1992, hereafter LS) indicates that the distribution of the visible matter in the universe is fractal or multifractal up to the present observed limits (~100 h−1 Mpc for H0 = 100 h km s−1 Mpc−1 and 0.5≤h≤1) without any evidence for homogenization on those scales. The fractal dimension obtained from these analyses is D ~ 1.2 - 1.3 (CP; LS).