Nearly full-sky low-multipole CMB temperature anisotropy: III. CMB anomalies

Fuente: arXiv
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Autores principales: Herold, Laura, Addison, Graeme E., Bennett, Charles L., Nofi, Hayley C., Weiland, J. L.
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2025
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author Herold, Laura
Addison, Graeme E.
Bennett, Charles L.
Nofi, Hayley C.
Weiland, J. L.
author_facet Herold, Laura
Addison, Graeme E.
Bennett, Charles L.
Nofi, Hayley C.
Weiland, J. L.
contents Unexpected features have been observed in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature on large scales. We revisit these CMB anomalies using new foreground-cleaned CMB temperature maps derived in a companion paper from WMAP and Planck data, which are tailored to low-resolution analysis and require only minimal masking of $1\%$ of the sky. These maps allow us to assess the impact of foreground-cleaning methods and the choice of sky cut on the significance of five commonly studied CMB anomalies. We find a notable impact of the choice of galactic mask on the significance of two anomalies: the significance of the low real-space correlation function and of the local-variance asymmetry reduces from $\sim3σ$ for the Planck common mask with $26\%$ masked fraction to $\sim2σ$ for the $1\%$ mask. We find good agreement between the two sky cuts for the low northern variance, $\sim3σ$, and the parity asymmetry, $\sim2σ$. For the quadrupole-octopole alignment, we find good agreement between the $1\%$-mask result and the full-sky results in the literature, $\sim3σ$. Thus using a larger fraction of the sky enabled by improved foreground cleaning reduces the significance of two commonly studied CMB anomalies. Overall, for an alternative physical model to be convincingly favored over $Λ$CDM with statistically-isotropic Gaussian fluctuations, it would need to explain multiple CMB anomalies, or better describe some other type of measurement in addition to a CMB anomaly.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2509_03720
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Nearly full-sky low-multipole CMB temperature anisotropy: III. CMB anomalies
Herold, Laura
Addison, Graeme E.
Bennett, Charles L.
Nofi, Hayley C.
Weiland, J. L.
Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
Unexpected features have been observed in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature on large scales. We revisit these CMB anomalies using new foreground-cleaned CMB temperature maps derived in a companion paper from WMAP and Planck data, which are tailored to low-resolution analysis and require only minimal masking of $1\%$ of the sky. These maps allow us to assess the impact of foreground-cleaning methods and the choice of sky cut on the significance of five commonly studied CMB anomalies. We find a notable impact of the choice of galactic mask on the significance of two anomalies: the significance of the low real-space correlation function and of the local-variance asymmetry reduces from $\sim3σ$ for the Planck common mask with $26\%$ masked fraction to $\sim2σ$ for the $1\%$ mask. We find good agreement between the two sky cuts for the low northern variance, $\sim3σ$, and the parity asymmetry, $\sim2σ$. For the quadrupole-octopole alignment, we find good agreement between the $1\%$-mask result and the full-sky results in the literature, $\sim3σ$. Thus using a larger fraction of the sky enabled by improved foreground cleaning reduces the significance of two commonly studied CMB anomalies. Overall, for an alternative physical model to be convincingly favored over $Λ$CDM with statistically-isotropic Gaussian fluctuations, it would need to explain multiple CMB anomalies, or better describe some other type of measurement in addition to a CMB anomaly.
title Nearly full-sky low-multipole CMB temperature anisotropy: III. CMB anomalies
topic Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.03720