The Axis of Evil revisited

2006/11/30 by Kate Land, K. Land, Joao Magueijo +1 · 9 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena #Space Science and Extraterrestrial Life #astro-ph

paper · pdf · doi:10.1111/j.1365-2966.2007.11749.x

published as Mon.Not.Roy.Astron.Soc.378:153-158,2007 · 7 pages, accepted to MNRAS

arxiv created 2007/03/21 · openalex publication_date 2007/05/10 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28

Abstract

In light of the three-year data release from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe, we re-examine the evidence for the ‘Axis of Evil’ (AoE). We discover that previous statistics are not robust with respect to the data sets available and different treatments of the Galactic plane. We identify the cause of the instability and implement an alternative ‘model selection’ approach. A comparison to Gaussian isotropic simulations finds the features significant at the 94–98 per cent level, depending on the particular AoE model. The Bayesian evidence finds lower significance, ranging from ‘substantial’ at Δ(ln E) ∼ 1.4 to no evidence for the most general AoE model.

Citations

• Testing the cosmological principle of isotropy: local power spectrum estimates of the WMAP data
• Testing for Non‐Gaussianity in theWilkinson Microwave Anisotropy ProbeData: Minkowski Functionals and the Length of the Skeleton
• First Year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Observations: Preliminary Maps and Basic Results
• On the large-angle anomalies of the microwave sky
• Multimodel Inference

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