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arXiv · 1209.4021

Probing CMB Cold Spot through Local Minkowski Functionals

Wen Zhao
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Abstract

Both WMAP and PLANCK missions reported the extremely Cold Spot (CS) centered at Galactic coordinate ($l=209^{\circ}$, $b=-57^{\circ}$) in CMB map. In this paper, we study the local non-Gaussianity of CS by defining the local Minkowski functions. We find that the third Minkowski function $\nu_2$ is quite sensitive to the non-Gaussianity caused by CS. Compared with the random Gaussian simulations, WMAP CS deviates from Gaussianity at more than 99% confident level at the scale $R\sim10^{\circ}$. Meanwhile, we find that cosmic texture provides an excellent explanation for these anomalies related to WMAP CS, which could be further tested by the future polarization data.

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Wen Zhao. 2012-09-18. Probing CMB Cold Spot through Local Minkowski Functionals. https://doi.org/10.1088/1674-4527/14/6/002

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