Non-Random Phase Correlations

In a universe seeded by Gaussian random-phase perturbations, as inflation predicts, the phases of different Fourier modes of the density field should be statistically independent. Analyses of both the CMB and large-scale structure reveal unexpected correlations between the phases of different modes — alignments that produce the filamentary structure of the cosmic web at a level somewhat stronger than pure Gaussian statistics would generate. ΛCDM absorbs this through nonlinear gravitational evolution and environmental effects, but the observed phase correlations at large scales, where linear evolution should apply, remain partially unexplained. In SCT, non-random phase correlations are a direct imprint of the collision geometry. The collision front deposited energy with a specific spatial pattern determined by the shapes and relative orientation of the two incoming pockets; this pattern introduced correlated phases across the overlap volume at the moment of thermalization.

The angular momentum inheritance mechanism reinforces phase correlations at intermediate scales: as matter collapsed under gravity after decoupling, the coherent angular momentum field provided a preferred sense of rotation that aligned the phases of gravitational potential wells along filaments and sheets. This is the same mechanism that produces coherent galaxy spin alignments at 30–100 Mpc scales — the large-scale phase correlations and the spin alignments are two observational manifestations of the same underlying angular momentum field. SCT therefore predicts that the degree of phase correlation should scale with angular momentum density, being strongest along the collision axis and in regions of high angular momentum inheritance, which are the dense filaments of the cosmic web where most galaxies form.