Test of consistency between Planck and WMAP

Abstract

Within the context of the concordance model of cosmology we test the consistency of the angular power spectrum data from WMAP and Planck looking for possible systematics. The best fit concordance model to each observation is used as a mean function along with a Crossing function with an orthogonal basis to fit the data from the other observation searching for any possible deviation. We report that allowing an overall amplitude shift in the observed angular power spectra of the two observations, the best fit mean function from Planck data is consistent with WMAP 9 year data but the best fit mean function generated from WMAP-9 data is not consistent with Planck data at the $3\sigma$ level. This is an expected result when there is no clear systematic/tension between two observations and one of them has a considerably higher precision. We conclude that there is no clear tension between Planck and WMAP 9 year angular power spectrum data from a statistical point of view (allowing the overall amplitude shift). Our result highlights the fact that while the angular power spectrum from cosmic microwave background observations is a function of various cosmological parameters, comparing individual parameters might be misleading in the presence of cosmographic degeneracies. Another main result of our analysis is the importance of the overall amplitudes of the observed spectra from Planck and WMAP observations. Fixing the amplitudes at their reported values results in an unresolvable tension between the two observations at more than $3\sigma$ level which can be a hint towards a serious systematic.

14 pages, 6 figures, discussions extended, 1 figure and few references added, results unchanged, matches the final version published in PRD

References in corpus (6)

• Planck 2013 results. XVI. Cosmological parameters
• Planck 2013 results. XV. CMB power spectra and likelihood
• Crossing Statistic: Reconstructing the Expansion History of the Universe
• Primordial power spectrum: a complete analysis with the WMAP nine-year data
• Confronting the concordance model of cosmology with Planck data
• On the Coherence of WMAP and Planck Temperature Maps

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• Primordial power spectrum from Planck
• On the consistency of $\Lambda$CDM with CMB measurements in light of the latest Planck, ACT, and SPT data
• Defying the laws of Gravity I: model-independent reconstruction of the Universe expansion from growth data
• Joint Planck and WMAP Assessment of Low CMB Multipoles
• Confronting the concordance model of cosmology with Planck data
• Cosmological discordances III: more on measure properties, Large-Scale-Structure constraints, the Hubble constant and Planck
• Consistency of the Planck CMB data and $\Lambda$CDM cosmology
• Low-$\ell$ power suppression in punctuated inflation
• Testing the consistency between cosmological measurements of distance and age
• Star-Crossed Labours: Checking Consistency Between Current Supernovae Compilations
• Unveiling acoustic physics of the CMB using nonparametric estimation of the temperature angular power spectrum for Planck
• Nonparametric test of consistency between cosmological models and multiband CMB measurements