Seven-Year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Observations: Are There Cosmic Microwave Background Anomalies?

TL;DR

This paper reviews WMAP data for potential anomalies, finding that most claimed deviations from the standard LCDM cosmological model are likely due to statistical fluctuations or data selection effects, reaffirming the model's overall validity.

Contribution

The paper provides a comprehensive analysis of WMAP anomalies, assessing their significance and demonstrating that the standard LCDM model remains a good fit to the data.

Findings

No compelling evidence for deviations from LCDM

Most anomalies are consistent with statistical fluctuations

WMAP data supports the standard cosmological model

Abstract

(Abridged) A simple six-parameter LCDM model provides a successful fit to WMAP data, both when the data are analyzed alone and in combination with other cosmological data. Even so, it is appropriate to search for any hints of deviations from the now standard model of cosmology, which includes inflation, dark energy, dark matter, baryons, and neutrinos. The cosmological community has subjected the WMAP data to extensive and varied analyses. While there is widespread agreement as to the overall success of the six-parameter LCDM model, various "anomalies" have been reported relative to that model. In this paper we examine potential anomalies and present analyses and assessments of their significance. In most cases we find that claimed anomalies depend on posterior selection of some aspect or subset of the data. Compared with sky simulations based on the best fit model, one can select for low probability features of the WMAP data. Low probability features are expected, but it is not usually straightforward to determine whether any particular low probability feature is the result of the a posteriori selection or of non-standard cosmology. We examine in detail the properties of the power spectrum with respect to the LCDM model. We examine several potential or previously claimed anomalies in the sky maps and power spectra, including cold spots, low quadrupole power, quadropole-octupole alignment, hemispherical or dipole power asymmetry, and quadrupole power asymmetry. We conclude that there is no compelling evidence for deviations from the LCDM model, which is generally an acceptable statistical fit to WMAP and other cosmological data.