1109.6936 (Sophie Zhang)

Isotropy in the two-point angular correlation function of the CMB    [PDF]

Sophie Zhang

We study the directional dependence of the angular two-point correlation
function in maps of the cosmic microwave background (CMB). We propose two new
statistics, one which measures the correlation of each point in the sky with a
ring of points separated angle theta away, and a second that measures the
missing angular correlation above 60 degrees as a function of direction. Using
these statistics, we find that most of the low power in cut-sky maps measured
by the WMAP experiment comes from unusually low contributions from the
directions of the lobes of the quadrupole and the octupole. These findings may
aid a future explanation of why the CMB exhibits low power at large angular
scales.

View original: http://arxiv.org/abs/1109.6936