Einstein Cluster Alignments Revisited

We have examined whether the major axes of rich galaxy clusters tend to point toward their nearest neighboring cluster. We have used the data of Ulmer, McMillan, and Kowalski, who used position angles based on X-ray morphology. We also studied a subset of this sample with updated positions and distances from the MX Northern Abell Cluster Survey (for rich clusters (R ≥ 1) with well known redshifts). A Kolmogorov-Smirnov (KS) test showed no significant signal for nonrandom angles on any scale ≤ 100hMpc. However, refining the null hypothesis with the Wilcoxon rank-sum test, we found a high confidence signal for alignment. Confidence levels increase to a high of 99.997% as only near neighbors which are very close are considered. We conclude there is a strong alignment signal in the data, consistent with gravitational instability acting on Gaussian perturbations. Subject headings: galaxies: clusters: general — large-scale structure of universe