  The non-Gaussian contribution to the intrinsic halo spin alignments is
analytically modeled and numerically detected. Assuming that the growth of
non-Gaussianity in the density fluctuations caused the tidal field to have
nonlinear-order effect on the orientations of the halo angular momentum, we
model the intrinsic halo spin alignments as a linear scaling of the density
correlations on large scales, which is different from the previous
quadratic-scaling model based on the linear tidal torque theory. Then, we
analyze the halo catalogs from the recent high-resolution Millennium Run
simulation at four different redshifts (z=0,0.5,1 and 2) and measure
quantitatively the degree of the nonlinear effect on the halo spin alignments
and its changes with redshifts. A clear signal of spin correlations is found on
scales as large as 10 Mpc/h at z=0, which marks a detection of the nonlinear
tidal effect on the intrinsic halo alignments. We also investigate how the
nonlinear effect depends on the intrinsic properties of the halos. It is found
that the degree of the nonlinear tidal effect increases as the halo mass scale
decreases, the halo specific angular momentum increases, and the halo peculiar
velocity decreases. We discuss implication of our result on the weak
gravitational lensing.
