The Network Behind the Cosmic Web
  The concept of the cosmic web, viewing the Universe as a set of discrete
galaxies held together by gravity, is deeply engrained in cosmology. Yet,
little is known about the most effective construction and the characteristics
of the underlying network. Here we explore seven network construction
algorithms that use various galaxy properties, from their location, to their
size and relative velocity, to assign a network to galaxy distributions
provided by both simulations and observations. We find that a model relying
only on spatial proximity offers the best correlations between the physical
characteristics of the connected galaxies. We show that the properties of the
networks generated from simulations and observations are identical, unveiling a
deep universality of the cosmic web.
