English

Nearly Full-Sky Low-Multipole CMB Temperature Anisotropy: II. Angular Power Spectra and Likelihood

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics 2025-09-05 v1

Abstract

We present a CMB temperature power spectrum measurement at large angular scales from WMAP and Planck maps that were cleaned of foregrounds using a template-based approach described in a companion paper. We recover essentially the full-sky CMB information at multipoles <30\ell<30 with only 1% of pixels near the Galactic plane masked and no inpainting. Notable features continue to appear: (a) a low quadrupole power compared to the best-fit Planck 2018 Λ\LambdaCDM spectrum at 2.2σ2.2\sigma, (b) a dip in the range 202720 \le \ell \le 27, and (c) an overall <30\ell<30 power level low of the Λ\LambdaCDM prediction derived from higher multipole moments. Given the different methodology from previous analyses and the nearly full-sky solution presented here, these features do not plausibly arise from foreground contamination, systematic errors, masking, or mode-mixing. Our overall <30\ell<30 amplitude constraint is consistent with published WMAP (77% sky fraction) and Planck (86%) results at 1.2σ1.2\sigma and 0.6σ0.6\sigma, respectively, accounting for the improvement in statistical precision. We present a new <30\ell<30 likelihood for use with the Cobaya package. Parameter constraints from joint fits with the higher-multipole Planck data are consistent with the published Planck results, for example we find H0=67.35±0.54H_0=67.35\pm0.54 km s1^{-1} Mpc1^{-1} in a joint Λ\LambdaCDM fit.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2509.03719,
  title  = {Nearly Full-Sky Low-Multipole CMB Temperature Anisotropy: II. Angular Power Spectra and Likelihood},
  author = {Hayley C. Nofi and Graeme E. Addison and Charles L. Bennett and Laura Herold and J. L. Weiland},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2509.03719},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

10 pages, 6 figures, submitted to ApJ, comments welcome