Are CMB derived cosmological parameters affected by foregrounds associated to nearby galaxies?
Abstract
We perform cosmological parameters estimation on Planck Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) maps masking the recently discovered foreground related to nearby spiral galaxies. In addition, we also analyse the association between these foreground regions and recent claims of cosmological causal horizons in localized CMB parameter estimates. Our analysis shows consistent cosmological parameter values regardless of the masking approach, though reduced sky areas introduce larger uncertainties. By modelling the new extragalactic foreground, we identify a resemblance with local parameter variation maps with a statistical significance at the 3 sigma level, suggesting that a simplified foreground model partially accounts, (40-50)% correlation with 15% uncertainty, for the observed causal horizons. These findings add new evidence to the existence of the new foreground associated with large spiral galaxies and show that estimates of cosmological parameters on smaller patches on the sky can be largely affected by these foregrounds, but that the parameters taken over the full sky are unaltered.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2410.24026,
title = {Are CMB derived cosmological parameters affected by foregrounds associated to nearby galaxies?},
author = {Facundo Toscano and Frode K. Hansen and Diego Garcia Lambas and Heliana Luparello and Pablo Fosalba and Enrique Gaztañaga},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2410.24026},
year = {2025}
}
Comments
13 pages, 10 figures. Version accepted for publication in Physical Review D