1998/04/30 by Alex Lewin, Andreas Albrecht, João Magueijo +1 · 1 citation
Computer Science · Mathematics · Physics and Astronomy · #Artificial intelligence #Astrophysics #Bispectrum #Computational Physics and Python Applications #Computer science #Cosmic microwave background #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Fourier transform #Gaussian #Gaussian function #Gaussian random field #Mathematics #Noise (video) #Non-Gaussianity #Optics #Physics #Quantum mechanics #Scientific Research and Discoveries #Spectral density #Statistic #Statistical physics #Statistics #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1046/j.1365-8711.1999.02104.x
published as Mon.Not.Roy.Astron.Soc.302:131-138,1999 · 8 pages, 14 figures Corrected typos
openalex publication_date 1999/01/01 · arxiv created 1999/04/09 · arxiv updated 2010/04/08 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
In this paper we propose a new statistic capable of detecting non-Gaussianity in the CMB. The statistic is defined in Fourier space, and therefore naturally separates angular scales. It consists of taking another Fourier transform, in angle, over the Fourier modes within a given ring of scales. Like other Fourier space statistics, our statistic outdoes more conventional methods when faced with combinations of Gaussian processes (be they noise or signal) and a non-Gaussian signal which dominates only on some scales. However, unlike previous efforts along these lines, our statistic is successful in recognizing multiple non-Gaussian patterns in a single field. We discuss various applications, in which the Gaussian component may be noise or primordial signal, and the non-Gaussian component may be a cosmic string map, or some geometrical construction mimicking, say, small-scale dust maps.