Astrophysics
[Submitted on 12 Jul 2005]
Title:Is the Universe odd?
View PDFAbstract: We investigate the point-parity and mirror-parity handedness of the large angle anisotropy in the cosmic microwave background (CMB). In particular we consider whether the observed low CMB quadrupole could more generally signal odd point-parity, i.e. suppression of even multipoles. Even though this feature is ``visually'' present in most renditions of the WMAP dataset we find that it never supports parity preference beyond the meagre 95% confidence level. This is fortunate as point parity handedness implies almost certainly a high level of galactic contamination. Mirror reflection parity, on the contrary, is related to the emergence of a preferred axis, defining the symmetry plane. We use this technique to make contact with recent claims for an anisotropic Universe, showing that the detected preferred axis is associated with positive (even) mirror parity. This feature may be an important clue in identifying the culprit for this unexpected signal.
References & Citations
Bibliographic and Citation Tools
Bibliographic Explorer (What is the Explorer?)
Connected Papers (What is Connected Papers?)
Litmaps (What is Litmaps?)
scite Smart Citations (What are Smart Citations?)
Code, Data and Media Associated with this Article
alphaXiv (What is alphaXiv?)
CatalyzeX Code Finder for Papers (What is CatalyzeX?)
DagsHub (What is DagsHub?)
Gotit.pub (What is GotitPub?)
Hugging Face (What is Huggingface?)
Papers with Code (What is Papers with Code?)
ScienceCast (What is ScienceCast?)
Demos
Recommenders and Search Tools
Influence Flower (What are Influence Flowers?)
CORE Recommender (What is CORE?)
IArxiv Recommender
(What is IArxiv?)
arXivLabs: experimental projects with community collaborators
arXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website.
Both individuals and organizations that work with arXivLabs have embraced and accepted our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only works with partners that adhere to them.
Have an idea for a project that will add value for arXiv's community? Learn more about arXivLabs.