Spatial Structure and Periodicity in the Universe

We analyze the possibility that the spatial periodicity of 128 h^{-1}Mpc in the galaxy count number observed recently in deep pencil-beam surveys could be explained by the mere existence of structure with the appropriate scale in the galaxy distribution in the Universe. We simulate a universe where the distribution of galaxies has an intrinsic length scale and then investigate the probability of observing in a given direction a spatial periodicity similar to that observed in the pencil-beam surveys of the galactic polar regions. A statistical analysis shows that this probability is of the order of 10^{-8}, a value which excludes the afore mentioned explanation. This result contrasts with the estimates based on Voronoi foam models which yield probabilities of the order 10^{-1} - 10^{-2}. The conclusion that emerges from these studies put together with the present one, is that although they can be obtained in some models, the presence of an intrinsic scale in the structure is not sufficient to achieve reasonable probabilities for observation of the detected periodicities.