Related papers: Exact likelihood evaluations and foreground margin…
We analyze the three-year WMAP temperature anisotropy data seeking to confirm the power spectrum and likelihoods published by the WMAP team. We apply five independent implementations of four algorithms to the power spectrum estimation and…
Cosmological parameters from WMAP 7 year data are re-analyzed by substituting a pixel-based likelihood estimator to the one delivered publicly by the WMAP team. Our pixel based estimator handles exactly intensity and polarization in a joint…
Many recent analyses have indicated that large scale WMAP data display anomalies that appear inconsistent with the standard cosmological paradigm. However, the effects of foreground contamination, which require elimination of some fraction…
We explore the low-l likelihood of the angular spectrum C(l) of masked CMB temperature maps using an adaptive importance sampler. We find that, in spite of a partial sky coverage, the likelihood distribution of each C(l) closely follows an…
Recent analyses of the WMAP data have suggested that the low-order multipoles of the CMB anisotropy distribution show cosmologically interesting and unexpected morphologies and amplitudes. In this paper, we apply a power equalization (PE)…
We revisit the problem of exact CMB likelihood and power spectrum estimation with the goal of minimizing computational cost through linear compression. This idea was originally proposed for CMB purposes by Tegmark et al.\ (1997), and here…
[Abridged] We have produced a cleaned map of the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) 3-year data using an improved foreground subtraction technique. We perform an internal linear combination (ILC) to subtract the Galactic foreground…
The amplitudes of the quadrupole and octopole measured from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) appear to be lower than expected according to the concordance Lambda CDM cosmology. However, the pseudo-Cl estimator used by the…
We investigate sets of random variables that can be arranged sequentially such that a given variable only depends conditionally on its immediate predecessor. For such sets, we show that the full joint probability distribution may be…
A Quadratic Maximum Likelihood (QML) estimator is applied to the WMAP 5 year low resolution maps to compute the CMB angular power spectra at large scales for both temperature and polarization. Estimates and error bars for the six angular…
We present the first results from a Bayesian analysis of the WMAP first year data using a Gibbs sampling technique. Using two independent, parallel supercomputer codes we analyze the WMAP Q, V and W bands. The analysis results in a full…
Large-scale modes in the temperature anisotropy power spectrum C_l measured by the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP), seem to have lower amplitudes (C_2, C_3 and C_4) than that expected in the so called concordance LCDM model. In…
We investigate the large scale anomalies in the angular distribution of the cosmic microwave background radiation as measured by WMAP using several tests. These tests, based on the multipole vector expansion, measure correlations between…
We apply the recently defined multipole vector framework to the frequency-specific first-year WMAP sky maps, estimating the low-l multipole coefficients from the high-latitude sky by means of a power equalization filter. While most previous…
Most analysis of Cosmic Microwave Background spherical harmonic coefficients a_lm has focused on estimating the power spectrum C_l=<|a_lm|^2> rather than the coefficients themselves. We present a minimum-variance method for measuring a_lm…
We study the power asymmetry between even and odd multipoles in the multipolar expansion of CMB temperature data from WMAP, recently reported in the literature. We introduce an alternate statistic which probes this effect more sensitively.…
(Abridged) A simple six-parameter LCDM model provides a successful fit to WMAP data, both when the data are analyzed alone and in combination with other cosmological data. Even so, it is appropriate to search for any hints of deviations…
WMAP observations have accurately determined the position of the first two peaks and dips in the CMB temperature power spectrum. These encode information on the ratio of the distance to the last scattering surface to the sound horizon at…
We extend to large scales a method proposed in previous work that reconstructs non-parametrically the primordial power spectrum from cosmic microwave background data at high resolution. The improvement is necessary to account for the…
We present a method for ultra-fast confrontation of the WMAP cosmic microwave background observations with theoretical models, implemented as a publicly available software package called CMBfit, useful for anyone wishing to measure…