[astro-ph/0511666] Mapping large-scale anisotropy in the WMA
Posted: November 28 2005
The 'Axis of Evil' strikes again?In particular we have found, with high statistical significance (> 95% CL), a small region in the celestial sphere with very high values of σ, which defines a direction very close to the one reported recently [6, 10].
Life is just a dohnut?Finally, regarding the origin of such large-scale anisotropy, a number of suggestions have been put forward. A detailed discussion of these suggestions is beyond the scope of the present work. Briefly though, they can arise either from a subtle form of unremoved foreground contamination (in which case the σ–map might
indicate where in the sky this contamination is most intense), or from the universe being genuinely anisotropic on large scales. This latter possibility is particularly interesting, as it would have potentially important consequences for the standard inflationary picture, which predicts statistically isotropic CMB temperature fluctuation patterns.
Among the proposed explanations, it has been suggested that the preferred direction could be due to the universe possessing a non-trivial topology