Signals of Statistical Anisotropy in WMAP Foreground-Cleaned Maps

Recently a symmetry-based method to test for statistical isotropy of the cosmic microwave background was developed. We apply the method to template-cleaned 3-year and 5-year WMAP-$DA$ maps. We examine a wide range of angular multipoles from $2 < l < 300$. The analysis detects statistically signicant signals of anisotropy inconsistent with an isotropic CMB in some of the foreground cleaned maps. We are unable to resolve whether the anomalies have a cosmological, local astrophysical or instrumental origin. Assuming the anisotropy arises due to residual foreground contamination, we estimate the residual foreground power in the maps. For the W band maps, we also find a highly improbable degree of isotropy we cannot explain. We speculate that excess isotropy may be caused by faulty modeling of detector noise.