cold spot
(CMB cold spot, WMAP cold spot)
(unusually colder spot in the CMB)
The cold spot (or CMB cold spot or WMAP cold spot) is
a region of the celestial sphere (a few tens of square degrees)
in which the cosmic microwave background (CMB) indicates a slightly lower temperature
than the rest, a difference on the order of 70 millionths of a kelvin.
The temperatures indicated by the CMB's black-body spectrum
across all the different portions of the celestial sphere generally
form a tight Gaussian distribution (a type of random distribution)
around a specific value, about 2.72548 K. However, at least one
test of gaussianity indicates this region's temperature is anomalously
low, suggesting it is an unlikely characteristic if there is a
physical reason for the randomness seen across the whole sky.
There has been some investigation regarding whether the apparent
colder region corresponds to a void or voids in that direction,
showing the low temperature due to a Sachs-Wolfe effect.
(CMB)
Further reading:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CMB_cold_spot
https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/cmb-cold-spot/
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017MNRAS.470.2328M/abstract
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2005MNRAS.356...29C/abstract
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2004ApJ...609...22V/abstract
Coordinates: | cold spot 031505-193502 |
|
Referenced by page:
topological defect
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