Related papers: Is the low-l microwave background cosmic?
[Abridged] We apply the multipole vector framework to full-sky maps derived from the first year WMAP data. We significantly extend our earlier work showing that the two lowest cosmologically interesting multipoles, l=2 and 3, are not…
On large angular scales (greater than about 60 degrees), the two-point angular correlation function of the temperature of the cosmic microwave background (CMB), as measured (outside of the plane of the Galaxy) by the Wilkinson Microwave…
At the largest angular scales the presence of a number of unexpected features has been confirmed by the latest measurements of the cosmic microwave background (CMB). Among them are the anomalous alignment of the quadrupole and octopole with…
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 revisit the alignments of the largest structures observed in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) using the seven and nine-year WMAP and first-year Planck data releases. The observed alignments -- the quadrupole with the octopole and…
We investigate anomalies reported in the Cosmic Microwave Background maps from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) satellite on very large angular scales and discuss possible interpretations. Three independent anomalies involve…
The large-angle (low-ell) correlations of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) as reported by the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) after their first year of observations exhibited statistically significant anomalies compared to…
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…
The low multipoles of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropy possess some strange properties like the alignment of the quadrupole and the octopole, and the extreme planarity or the extreme sphericity of some multipoles,…
Full-sky maps of the cosmic microwave background temperature reveal a 7% asymmetry of fluctuation power between two halves of the sky. A common phenomenological model for this asymmetry is an overall dipole modulation of statistically…
Context. The existence of a maximum correlation angle ($\theta_{max} \gtrsim 60^{\circ}$) in the two-point angular temperature correlations of cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation, measured by WMAP and Planck, stands in sharp…
It has been argued recently by Copi etal (2009) that the lack of large angular correlations of the CMB temperature field provides strong evidence against the standard, statistically isotropic, inflationary LambdaCDM cosmology. We compare…
We study the alignments of the low multipoles of CMB anisotropies with specific directions in the sky (i.e. the dipole, the north Ecliptic pole, the north Galactic pole and the north Super Galactic pole). Performing $10^5$ random…
Several anomalies appear to be present in the large-angle cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropy maps of WMAP, including the alignment of large-scale multipoles. Models in which isotropy is spontaneously broken (e.g., by a scalar…
The observed angular correlation function of the cosmic microwave background has previously been reported to be anomalous, particularly when measured in regions of the sky uncontaminated by Galactic emission. Recent work by Efstathiou et…
We compared the Planck 2018 data on the large-scale anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background to the results obtained in the slightly anisotropic ellipsoidal universe. We focused on the quadrupole temperature correlations to better…
We investigate the angular two-point correlation function of temperature in the WMAP maps. Updating and extending earlier results, we confirm the lack of correlations outside the Galaxy on angular scales greater than about 60 degrees at a…
Several analyses of the microwave sky maps from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) have drawn attention to alignments amongst the low-order multipoles. Amongst the various possible explanations, an effect of cosmic topology has…
Most treatments of large scale anomalies in the microwave sky are a posteriori, with unquantified look-elsewhere effects. We contrast these with physical models of specific inhomogeneities in the early universe which then generate apparent…
The largest uncollapsed inhomogeneity in the observable Universe is statistically represented in the quadrupole signal of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) sky maps as observed by the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP). The…