Searching for ring-like structures in the Cosmic Microwave Background

TL;DR

This study develops a new method to detect ring-like structures with large temperature gradients in the CMB, tests it on simulated data, and applies it to Planck data, finding no significant structures but highlighting the potential for future research.

Contribution

The paper introduces an alternative methodology for detecting Hawking points in the CMB and evaluates its effectiveness using simulated data and real observations.

Findings

Successfully retrieved 95% of simulated ring-like anomalies.

No significant Hawking point structures found in Planck CMB data.

Largest excess observed at 1% significance level, warranting further research.

Abstract

In this research, we present an alternative methodology to search for ring-like structures in the sky with unusually large temperature gradients, namely Hawking points (HP), in the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB), which are possible observational effects associated with Conformal Cyclic Cosmology (CCC). To assess the performance of our method, we constructed an artificial data set of HP, according to CCC, and we were able to retrieve $95 \%$ of ring-like anomalies from it. Furthermore, we scanned the \textit{Planck} CMB sky map and compared it to simulations according to $\Lambda CDM$, where we applied robust statistical tests to assess the existence of HP. Even though no significant ring-like structures were observed, we report the largest excess of HP candidates found at $\alpha = $1\% significance level for the analyzed sky maps (CMB at 70GHz, SEVEM, SMICA, and Commander-Ruler), and we stress the need to continue the theoretical and experimental research in this direction.