We measure the alignment of galaxy ellipticities in the local Universe over a range of scales using digitized photographic data from the SuperCOSMOS Sky Survey .
We find for a magnitude cut of b _ { J } < 20.5 , corresponding to a median galaxy redshift of z \approx 0.1 , and 2 \times 10 ^ { 6 } galaxies , that the galaxy ellipticities exhibit a non-zero correlation over a range of scales between 1 and 100 arcminutes .
In particular , we measure the variance of mean galaxy ellipticities , \sigma ^ { 2 } ( \theta ) , in square angular cells on the sky as a function of cell size and find it lies in the range , 2 \times 10 ^ { -4 } \geq \sigma ^ { 2 } ( \theta ) \geq \sim 1 \times 10 ^ { -5 } for cell side lengths between 15 \leq \theta \leq 100 arcminutes .
Considering the low median redshift of the galaxies in the sample and hence the relatively low effective cross-section for lensing of these galaxies by the large-scale structure of the Universe , we propose that we have detected an intrinsic alignment of galaxy ellipticities .
We compare our results to recent analytical and numerical predictions made for the intrinsic galaxy alignment and find good agreement .
We discuss the importance of these results for measuring cosmic shear from upcoming shallow surveys ( e.g .
Sloan Digital Sky Survey ) and we outline how these measurements could possibly be used to constrain models of galaxy formation and/or measure the mass distribution in the local universe .