New constraints on parity symmetry from a re-analysis of the WMAP-7 low-resolution power spectra

8 páginas, 6 figuras, 3 tablas.-- El Pdf del archivo es la versión pre-print: arXiv:1006.1979v2 .-- et al.The parity symmetry of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) pattern as seen by Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe 7 yr (WMAP 7 yr) is tested jointly in temperature and polarization at large angular scale. A quadratic maximum likelihood (QML) estimator is applied to the WMAP 7-yr low-resolution maps to compute all polarized CMB angular power spectra. The analysis is supported by 10 000 realistic Monte Carlo realizations. We confirm the previously reported parity anomaly for TT in the range δℓ=[2, 22] at >99.5 per cent C.L. No anomalies have been detected in TT for a wider ℓ range (up to ℓmax= 40). No violations have been found for EE, TE and BB which we test here for the first time. The cross-spectra TB and EB are found to be consistent with zero. We also forecast Planck capabilities in probing parity violations on low-resolution maps.Support for LAMBDA is provided by the NASA Office of Space Science. This work was supported by ASI through ASI/INAF Agreement I/072/09/0 for the Planck LFI Activity of Phase E2.Peer reviewe

Hemispherical power asymmetries in the WMAP 7-year low-resolution temperature and polarization maps

We test the hemispherical power asymmetry of the WMAP 7-year low-resolution temperature and polarization maps. We consider two natural estimators for such an asymmetry and exploit our implementation of an optimal angular power spectrum estimator for all the six CMB spectra. By scanning the whole sky through a sample of 24 directions, we search for asymmetries in the power spectra of the two hemispheres, comparing the results with Monte Carlo simulations drawn from the WMAP 7-year best-fit model. Our analysis extends previous results to the polarization sector. The level of asymmetry on the ILC temperature map is found to be compatible with previous results, whereas no significant asymmetry on the polarized spectra is detected. Moreover, we show that our results are only weakly affected by the a posteriori choice of the maximum multipole considered for the analysis. We also forecast the capability to detect dipole modulation by our methodology at Planck sensitivity.Comment: 7 pages, 9 figures. Accepted for publication in MNRA

Cosmological Parameters from a re-analysis of the WMAP-7 low resolution maps

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 manner, allowing to use low-resolution maps and noise covariance matrices in $T,Q,U$ at the same resolution, which in this work is 3.6$^\circ$. We describe the features and the performances of the code implementing our pixel-based likelihood estimator. We perform a battery of tests on the application of our pixel based likelihood routine to WMAP publicly available low resolution foreground cleaned products, in combination with the WMAP high-$\ell$ likelihood, reporting the differences on cosmological parameters evaluated by the full WMAP likelihood public package. The differences are not only due to the treatment of polarization, but also to the marginalization over monopole and dipole uncertainties implemented in the WMAP 7 year pixel likelihood code for temperature. The credible central value for the cosmological parameters change below the 1 $\sigma$ level with respect to the evaluation by the full WMAP 7 year likelihood code, with the largest difference in a shift to smaller values of the scalar spectral index $n_S$.Comment: Revised to match the version on press in MNRAS. Different interpretation of differences vs WMAP 7. 10 pages, 6 tables, 8 figure

An optimal estimator for the CMB-LSS angular power spectrum and its application to WMAP and NVSS data

We use a Quadratic Maximum Likelihood (QML) method to estimate the angular power spectrum of the cross-correlation between cosmic microwave background and large scale structure maps as well as their individual auto-spectra. We describe our implementation of this method and demonstrate its accuracy on simulated maps. We apply this optimal estimator to WMAP 7-year and NRAO VLA Sky Survey (NVSS) data and explore the robustness of the angular power spectrum estimates obtained by the QML method. With the correction of the declination systematics in NVSS, we can safely use most of the information contained in this survey. We then make use of the angular power spectrum estimates obtained by the QML method to derive constraints on the dark energy critical density in a flat $\Lambda$CDM model by different likelihood prescriptions. When using just the cross-correlation between WMAP 7 year and NVSS maps with 1.8$^\circ$ resolution, the best-fit model has a cosmological constant of approximatively 70% of the total energy density, disfavouring an Einstein-de Sitter Universe at more than 2 $\sigma$ CL (confidence level).Comment: 12 pages, 12 figure

New constraints on Parity Symmetry from a re-analysis of the WMAP-7 low resolution power spectra

The Parity symmetry of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) pattern as seen by WMAP 7 is tested jointly in temperature and polarization at large angular scale. A Quadratic Maximum Likelihood (QML) estimator is applied to the WMAP 7 year low resolution maps to compute all polarized CMB angular power spectra. The analysis is supported by 10000 realistic Monte-Carlo realizations. We confirm the previously reported Parity anomaly for TT in the range $\delta \ell=[2,22]$ at $> 99.5$ C.L.. No anomalies have been detected in TT for a wider $\ell$ range (up to $\ell_{max}=40$). No violations have been found for EE, TE and BB which we test here for the first time. The cross-spectra TB and EB are found to be consistent with zero. We also forecast {\sc Planck} capabilities in probing Parity violations on low resolution maps.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures, 4 tables. Accepted for publication in MNRA

Evolution of Large Scale Curvature Fluctuations During the Perturbative Decay of the Inflaton

We study the evolution of cosmological fluctuations during and after inflation driven by a scalar field coupled to a perfect fluid through afriction term. During the slow-roll regime for the scalar field, the perfect fluid is also frozen and isocurvature perturbations are generated. After the end of inflation, during the decay of the inflaton, we find that a change in the observationally relevant large scale curvature fluctuations is possible.Comment: 9 pages, 2 figures; v2: version published in PR

Large Scale Traces of Solar System Cold Dust on CMB Anisotropies

We explore the microwave anisotropies at large angular scales produced by the emission from cold and large dust grains, expected to exist in the outer parts of the Solar System, using a simple toy model for this diuse emission. Its amplitude is constrained in the Far-IR by the COBE data and is compatible with simulations found in the literature. We analyze the templates derived after subtracting our model from the WMAP ILC 7 yr maps and investigate on the cosmological implications of such a possible foreground. The anomalies related to the low quadrupole of the angular power spectrum, the two-point correlation function, the parity and the excess of signal found in the ecliptic plane are significantly alleviated. An impact of this foreground for some cosmological parameters characterizing the spectrum of primordial density perturbations, relevant for on-going and future CMB anisotropy experiments, is found.Comment: Issue 2.0, Accepted for pub. in MNRAS, Apr 8th, 2011, (sub. Oct 4th, 2010); 10 pages, 6 Figures, 1 table; pdflatex with mn2e, AMS, natbib, txfonts, graphic

Power Asymmetries in the Cosmic Microwave Background Temperature and Polarization patterns

We test the asymmetry of the Cosmic Microwave Background anisotropy jointly in temperature and polarization. We study the hemispherical asymmetry, previously found only in the temperature field, with respect to the axis identified by Hansen et al. (2009). To this extent, we make use of the low resolution WMAP 5 year temperature and polarization Nside=16 maps and the optimal angular power spectrum estimator BolPol (Gruppuso et al. 2009). We consider two simple estimators for the power asymmetry and we compare our findings with Monte Carlo simulations which take into account the full noise covariance matrix. We confirm an excess of power in temperature angular power spectrum in the Southern hemisphere at a significant level, between 3 sigma and 4 sigma depending on the exact range of multipoles considered. We do not find significant power asymmetry in the gradient (curl) component EE (BB) of polarized angular spectra. Also cross-correlation power spectra, i.e. TE, TB, EB, show no significant hemispherical asymmetry. We also show that the Cold Spot found by Vielva et al. (2004) in the Southern Galactic hemisphere does not alter the significance of the hemispherical asymmetries on multipoles which can be probed by maps at resolution Nside=16. Although the origin of the hemispherical asymmetry in temperature remains unclear, the study of the polarization patter could add useful information on its explanation. We therefore forecast by Monte Carlo the Planck capabilities in probing polarization asymmetries.Comment: 6 pages, 7 figure

Searching for hidden mirror symmetries in CMB fluctuations from WMAP 7 year maps

We search for hidden mirror symmetries at large angular scales in the WMAP 7 year Internal Linear Combination map of CMB temperature anisotropies using global pixel based estimators introduced for this aim. Two different axes are found for which the CMB intensity pattern is anomalously symmetric (or anti-symmetric) under reflection with respect to orthogonal planes at the 99.84(99.96)% CL (confidence level), if compared to a result for an arbitrary axis in simulations without the symmetry. We have verified that our results are robust to the introduction of the galactic mask. The direction of such axes is close to the CMB kinematic dipole and nearly orthogonal to the ecliptic plane, respectively. If instead the real data are compared to those in simulations taken with respect to planes for which the maximal mirror symmetry is generated by chance, the confidence level decreases to 92.39 (76.65)%. But when the effect in question translates into the anomalous alignment between normals to planes of maximal mirror (anti)-symmetry and these natural axes mentioned. We also introduce the representation of the above estimators in the harmonic domain, confirming the results obtained in the pixel one. The symmetry anomaly is shown to be almost entirely due to low multipoles, so it may have a cosmological and even primordial origin. Contrary, the anti-symmetry one is mainly due to intermediate multipoles that probably suggests its non-fundamental nature. We have demonstrated that these anomalies are not connected to the known issue of the low variance in WMAP observations and we have checked that axially symmetric parts of these anomalies are small, so that the axes are not the symmetry ones.Comment: 18 pages, 10 figures, 2 tables. Consideration and discussion expanded, 5 figures and 1 table added, main conclusions unchange