Angular momentum alignment of dark matter haloes

Using high-resolution cosmological N-body simulations, we investigate the t endency of dark matter haloes to have their axes of rotation aligned simila rly to those of their neighbours, or pointing towards local large-scale str uctures. We quantify these effects as a function of scale using measures so mewhat analogous to the velocity dispersion and infall velocity statistics. We find a weak mutual alignment between haloes of separation similar to1 h( -1) Mpc, More interestingly, we measure a slight (one per cent), but highly significant trend for angular momentum vectors to point towards overdensit ies in the halo distribution field over the range 1-30 h(-1) Mpc, i.e. up t o the largest scales reliably probed by our simulations. We investigate the dependence of the observed correlations on cosmology, ha lo size, and redshift, and discuss the possibility of being able to observe such effects with real galaxy surveys.