Related papers: Can a supervoid explain the Cold Spot?
One of the most interesting explanations for the non-Gaussian Cold Spot (CS) detected in the WMAP data by Vielva et al. 2004, is that it arises from the interaction of the CMB radiation with a cosmic texture (Cruz et al. 2007b). In this…
The divergence of the momentum density field of the large scale structure generates a secondary anisotropy contribution to the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). While the effect is best described as a non-linear extension to the well-known…
The observed apparent acceleration of the universe is usually attributed to negative pressure from a mysterious dark energy. This acceleration causes the gravitational potential to decay, heating or cooling photons travelling through crests…
The cross-correlation between cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature anisotropies and the large scale structure (LSS) traced by the galaxy distribution, or sources at different wavelengths, is now well known. This correlation results…
Through a large ensemble of Gaussian realisations and a suite of large-volume N-body simulations, we show that in a standard LCDM scenario, supervoids and superclusters in the redshift range $z\in[0.4,0.7]$ should leave a {\em small}…
Cosmic structures leave an imprint on the microwave background radiation through the integrated Sachs-Wolfe effect. We construct a template map of the linear signal using the SDSS-III Baryon Acoustic Oscillation Survey at redshift 0.43 < z…
We measure hot and cold spots on the microwave background associated with supercluster and supervoid structures identified in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Luminous Red Galaxy catalog. The structures give a compelling visual imprint, with a…
One of the most striking features found in the cosmic microwave background data is the presence of an anomalous Cold Spot (CS) in the temperature maps made by the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP). This CS has been interpreted as…
In the present work, we study the largest structures of the CMB temperature measured by Planck in terms of the most prominent peaks on the sky, which, in particular, are located in the southern galactic hemisphere. Besides these large-scale…
The WMAP cold spot was found by applying spherical wavelets to the first year WMAP data. An excess of kurtosis of the wavelet coefficient was observed at angular scales of around 5 degrees. This excess was shown to be inconsistent with…
Scattering of the temperature anisotropy quadrupole by free electrons in galaxy clusters leads to a secondary polarization signal in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) fluctuations. At low redshifts, the temperature quadrupole contains a…
The scattering of temperature anisotropy quadrupole by free electrons in galaxy clusters leads to a now well-known polarization signal in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) fluctuations. Using multi-frequency polarization data, one can…
Several statistical anomalies in the CMB temperature anisotropies seem to defy the assumption of a homogeneous and isotropic universe. In particular, a dipole modulation has been detected both in WMAP and Planck data. We adapt the…
Peculiar velocities encode rich cosmological information, but their transverse components are hard to measure. Here, we present the first observations of a novel effect of transverse velocities: the dipole signatures that they imprint on…
Secondary anisotropies of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) can be detected by using the cross-correlation between the large-scale structure (LSS) and the CMB temperature fluctuations. In such studies, chance correlations of primordial…
We investigate the abundance of large-scale hot and cold spots in the WMAP-5 temperature maps and find considerable discrepancies compared to Gaussian simulations based on the LCDM best-fit model. Too few spots are present in the reliably…
Recent results of the ESA Planck satellite have confirmed the existence of some anomalies in the statistical distribution of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropies. One of the most intriguing anomalies is the Cold Spot, firstly…
A crucial diagnostic of the \Lambda CDM cosmological model is the integrated Sachs-Wolfe (ISW) effect of large-scale structure on the cosmic microwave background (CMB). The ISW imprint of superstructures of size \sim100\;h^{-1} Mpc at…
We provide evidence of the detection of a new non-Gaussian anomaly in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation which has larger statistical significance than the Cold Spot (CS) anomaly and comparable size. This temperature anomaly is…
The local void model has recently attracted considerable attention because it can explain the apparent accelerated expansion of the present universe without introducing dark energy. However, in order to justify this model as an alternative…