Related papers: Occam's razor meets WMAP
There is currently a debate over the existence of claimed statistical anomalies in the cosmic microwave background (CMB), recently confirmed in Planck data. Recent work has focussed on methods for measuring statistical significance, on…
We have investigated the odd-parity preference of the WMAP 7 year power spectrum. Comparison with simulation shows the odd-parity preference of WMAP data (2<= l <=22) is anomalous at 4-in-1000 level. We have investigated its origins, and…
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…
Statistical learning theory is often associated with the principle of Occam's razor, which recommends a simplicity preference in inductive inference. This paper distills the core argument for simplicity obtainable from statistical learning…
We examine the consistency of WMAP9 and Planck data. We compare sky maps, power spectra, and inferred LCDM cosmological parameters. Residual dipoles are seen in the WMAP and Planck sky map differences, but are consistent within the…
We report the detection of a high Galactic latitude, large scale, 7-sigma signal in WMAP 5yr and spatially correlated with the ecliptic plane. Two possible candidates are studied, namely unresolved sources and Zodiacal light emission. We…
In this review we discuss constraints on minimal supersymmetric models of particle physics implied by the recent astrophysical observations of WMAP. Although the prospects of detecting supersymmetry increase and 90 percent of the available…
The Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) has measured lower amplitudes for the temperature quadrupole and octopole anisotropies than expected in the best fitting (concordance) Lambda-dominated cold dark matter cosmology. Some authors…
How do we compare between hypotheses that are entirely consistent with observations? The marginal likelihood (aka Bayesian evidence), which represents the probability of generating our observations from a prior, provides a distinctive…
Large-scale anomalies have been reported in CMB data with both WMAP and Planck data. These could be due to foreground residuals and or systematic effects, though their confirmation with Planck data suggests they are not due to a problem in…
I discuss whether the standard cosmological models fit the WMAP data well enough to justify parameter estimation with standard assumptions. The observed quadrupole is low (but has significant foreground uncertainty) and drives weak evidence…
The recent empirical success of unsupervised cross-domain mapping algorithms, between two domains that share common characteristics, is not well-supported by theoretical justifications. This lacuna is especially troubling, given the clear…
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 show that the popular ILC approach is unstable in respect to the division of the sample of map pixels to the set of ``homogeneous'' subsamples. For suitable choice of such subsamples we can obtain the restored CMB signal with amplitudes…
The temperature anisotropy power spectrum measured with the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) at high multipoles is in spectacular agreement with an inflationary Lambda-dominated cold dark matter cosmology. However, the low order…
We have investigated the angular correlation in the recent CMB data. In addition to the known large-angle correlation anomaly, we find the lack of correlation at small angles with high statistical significance. We have investigated various…
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)…
Low-rank approximation of a matrix by means of random sampling has been consistently efficient in its empirical studies by many scientists who applied it with various sparse and structured multipliers, but adequate formal support for this…
The singular value decomposition is widely used to approximate data matrices with lower rank matrices. Feng and He [Ann. Appl. Stat. 3 (2009) 1634-1654] developed tests on dimensionality of the mean structure of a data matrix based on the…
We confront predictions of inflationary scenarios with the WMAP data, in combination with complementary small-scale CMB measurements and large-scale structure data. The WMAP detection of a large-angle anti-correlation in the…