Broken Isotropy from a Linear Modulation of the Primordial Perturbations

Abstract

A linear modulation of the primordial perturbations is proposed as an explanation for the observed asymmetry between the northern and southern hemispheres of the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) data. A cut sky, reduced resolution third year "Internal Linear Combination" (ILC) map was used to estimate the modulation parameters. A foreground template and a modulated plus unmodulated monopole and dipole were projected out of the likelihood. The effective chi squared is reduced by nine for three extra parameters. The mean Galactic colatitude and longitude, of the modulation, with 68%, 95% and 99.7% confidence intervals were 56^{+17 +36 +65}_{-17 -35 -51} and 63^{+28 +59 +105}_{-26 -58 -213}. The mean percentage change of the variance, across the pole's of the modulation, was 62^{+18 +35 +57}_{-18 -35 -47}. Implications of these results and possible generating mechanisms are discussed.

15 pages, 3 figures; Discussion section and references updated. Matches version to appear in ApJ

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• CMB Temperature Anisotropy from Broken Spatial Isotropy due to an Homogeneous Cosmological Magnetic Field
• Testable polarization predictions for models of CMB isotropy anomalies
• Bayesian Calibrated Significance Levels Applied to the Spectral Tilt and Hemispherical Asymmetry
• Non-isotropy in the CMB power spectrum in single field inflation
• Alignment and signed-intensity anomalies in WMAP data
• Non-Gaussianity analysis on local morphological measures of WMAP data