Probing the Dark Flow signal in WMAP 9 yr and PLANCK cosmic microwave background maps

TL;DR

This study investigates the dark flow signal in WMAP 9-year and Planck data, confirming its consistency, correlation with galaxy clusters, and ruling out systematic effects or Sunyaev-Zeldovich contamination.

Contribution

It provides the first combined analysis of WMAP and Planck data, confirming the dark flow signal and its association with massive galaxy clusters across different datasets.

Findings

Dark flow dipole is consistent across WMAP and Planck data.

Dipole correlates with cluster X-ray luminosity and anisotropy.

Signal is dominated by the most massive clusters.

Abstract

The "dark flow" dipole is a statistically significant dipole found at the position of galaxy clusters in filtered maps of Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) temperature anisotropies. The dipole measured in WMAP 3, 5 and 7 yr data releases was 1) mutually consistent, 2) roughly aligned with the all-sky CMB dipole and 3) correlated with clusters' X-ray luminosity. We analyzed WMAP 9 yr and the 1st yr Planck data releases using a catalog of 980 clusters outside the Kp0 mask to test our earlier findings. The dipoles measured on these new data sets are fully compatible with our earlier estimates, being similar in amplitude and direction to our previous results and in disagreement with the results of an earlier study by the Planck Collaboration. Further, in Planck datasets dipoles are found independent of frequency, ruling out the Thermal Sunyaev-Zeldovich as the source of the effect. Both, in WMAP and Planck, we find a clear correlation between the dipole measured at the cluster location in filtered maps with the average anisotropy on the original maps, further proving that the dipole is associated with clusters. The dipole signal is dominated by the most massive clusters, with a statistical significance better than 99\%, slightly larger than in WMAP. Since both data sets differ in foreground contributions, instrumental noise and other systematics, the agreement between WMAP and Planck dipoles argues against them being due to systematic effects in either of the experiments.