2003/08/31 by M. E. Abroe, J. Borrill, Pedro G. Ferreira +14 · 2 citations
Mathematics · Physics and Astronomy · #Anisotropy #Astronomy #Astrophysics #CMB cold spot #Computational physics #Correlation function (quantum field theory) #Cosmic microwave background #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena #Mathematics #Maxima #Microwave #Optics #Physics #Quantum mechanics #Radio Astronomy Observations and Technology #Sky #Spectral density #Spectral line #Statistics #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1086/382348
published as Astrophys.J.605:607-613,2004 · 8 pages, 12 figures, accepted by ApJ
arxiv created 2003/12/19 · openalex publication_date 2004/04/09 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We cross-correlate the cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature anisotropy maps from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe ( WMAP ), MAXIMA-1, and MAXIMA-2 experiments. We use the cross spectrum, which is the spherical harmonic transform of the angular two-point correlation function, to quantify the correlation as a function of angular scale. We find that the three possible pairs of cross spectra are in close agreement with each other and with the power spectra of the individual maps. The probability that there is no correlation between the maps is smaller than 1 × 10 -8 . We also calculate power spectra for maps made of differences between pairs of maps and show that they are consistent with no signal. The results conclusively show that the three experiments not only display the same statistical properties of the CMB anisotropy, but also detect the same features wherever the observed sky areas overlap. We conclude that the contribution of systematic errors to these maps is negligible and that MAXIMA and WMAP have accurately mapped the CMB anisotropy.