Angular-planar CMB power spectrum

Journal Article · Tue Sep 15 04:00:00 EDT 2009 · Physical Review. D, Particles Fields

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PHYSREVD.80.063525· OSTI ID:21322699

Pereira, Thiago S; Abramo, L Raul ^[1]

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1. Instituto de Fisica Teorica, UNESP-Universidade Estadual Paulista, Caixa Postal 70532-2, 01140-070, Sao Paulo (Brazil)

Gaussianity and statistical isotropy of the Universe are modern cosmology's minimal set of hypotheses. In this work we introduce a new statistical test to detect observational deviations from this minimal set. By defining the temperature correlation function over the whole celestial sphere, we are able to independently quantify both angular and planar dependence (modulations) of the CMB temperature power spectrum over different slices of this sphere. Given that planar dependence leads to further modulations of the usual angular power spectrum C{sub l}, this test can potentially reveal richer structures in the morphology of the primordial temperature field. We have also constructed an unbiased estimator for this angular-planar power spectrum which naturally generalizes the estimator for the usual C{sub l}'s. With the help of a chi-square analysis, we have used this estimator to search for observational deviations of statistical isotropy in WMAP's 5 year release data set (ILC5), where we found only slight anomalies on the angular scales l=7 and l=8. Since this angular-planar statistic is model-independent, it is ideal to employ in searches of statistical anisotropy (e.g., contaminations from the galactic plane) and to characterize non-Gaussianities.

• OSTI ID: 21322699
• Journal Information: Physical Review. D, Particles Fields, Journal Name: Physical Review. D, Particles Fields Journal Issue: 6 Vol. 80; ISSN PRVDAQ; ISSN 0556-2821
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS
79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
ANISOTROPY
CORRELATION FUNCTIONS
COSMOLOGY
HYPOTHESIS
ISOTROPY
MODULATION
RELICT RADIATION
SPECTRA
UNIVERSE