Mysteries on Universe's Largest Observable Scales

Abstract

We review recent findings that the universe on its largest scales shows hints of the violation of statistical isotropy, in particular alignment with the geometry and direction of motion of the solar system, and missing power at scales greater than 60 degrees. We present the evidence, attempts to explain it using astrophysical, cosmological or instrumental mechanisms, and prospects for future understanding.

13 pages and 5 figures; Proceedings of the Fundamental Physics With CMB workshop, UC Irvine, March 23-25, 2006, to be published in New Astronomy Reviews

References in corpus (4)

• Local Voids as the Origin of Large-angle Cosmic Microwave Background Anomalies I
• On the CMB large-scales angular correlations
• Alignment tests for low CMB multipoles
• CMB statistical anisotropy, multipole vectors and the influence of the dipole

Cited by in corpus (23)

• Imprints of a Primordial Preferred Direction on the Microwave Background
• An Imprint of Super-Structures on the Microwave Background due to the Integrated Sachs-Wolfe Effect
• Large-angle anomalies in the CMB
• Cosmic Microwave Background Statistics for a Direction-Dependent Primordial Power Spectrum
• No large-angle correlations on the non-Galactic microwave sky
• Light propagation in statistically homogeneous and isotropic dust universes
• Light propagation in statistically homogeneous and isotropic universes with general matter content
• Model-independent cosmological constraints from the CMB
• Disks in the sky: A reassessment of the WMAP "cold spot"
• Non-detection of a statistically anisotropic power spectrum in large-scale structure
• Anomalous CMB north-south asymmetry
• Can a primordial magnetic field originate large-scale anomalies in WMAP data?
• No evidence for the cold spot in the NVSS radio survey
• The status of cosmological natural selection
• The Cold Spot as a Large Void: Rees-Sciama effect on CMB Power Spectrum and Bispectrum
• Searching for non-Gaussianity in the WMAP data
• Bipolar Harmonic encoding of CMB correlation patterns
• Is the cold spot responsible for the CMB North-South asymmetry?
• North-South non-Gaussian asymmetry in PLANCK CMB maps
• Hemispherical power asymmetry: parameter estimation from CMB WMAP5 data
• Large Scale Traces of Solar System Cold Dust on CMB Anisotropies
• Testing the statistical isotropy of large scale structure with multipole vectors
• Leakage of power from dipole to higher multipoles due to non-symmetric WMAP beam