Probing CMB Cold Spot through Local Minkowski Functionals

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 $R\sim 10^{\circ }$. 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.

7 pages, 7 figures. RAA accepted. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1209.1174

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• Probing the statistical properties of CMB $B$-mode polarization through Minkowski Functionals
• North-South non-Gaussian asymmetry in PLANCK CMB maps
• Preferred axis of CMB parity asymmetry in the masked maps
• Probing CMB Polarization Gaussianity with the Statistics of Unpolarized Points: Non-Gaussianity of Planck Data and Prospects for Future B-Mode Measurements