C. Gimeno-Amo

Various so-called anomalies have been found in both the WMAP and Planck cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature data that exert a mild tension against the highly successful best-fit 6 parameter cosmological model, potentially providing hints of new physics to be explored. That these are real features on the sky is uncontested. However, given their modest significance, whether they are indicative of true departures from the standard cosmology or simply statistical excursions due to a mildly unusual configuration of temperature anisotropies on the sky which we refer to as the “fluke hypothesis” cannot be addressed further without new information. No theoretical model of primordial perturbations has to date been constructed that can explain all of the temperature anomalies. Therefore, we focus in this paper on testing the fluke hypothesis, based on the partial correlation between the temperature and E -mode CMB polarisation signal. In particular, we compare the properties of specific statistics in polarisation, built from unconstrained realisations of the ΛCDM cosmological model as might be observed by the LiteBIRD satellite, with those determined from constrained simulations, where the part of the E -mode anisotropy correlated with temperature is constrained by observations of the latter. Specifically, we use inpainted Planck 2018 SMICA temperature data to constrain the E -mode realisations. Subsequent analysis makes use of masks defined to minimise the impact of the inpainting procedure on the E -mode map statistics. We find that statistical assessments of the E -mode data alone do not provide any evidence for or against the fluke hypothesis. However, tests based on cross-statistical measures determined from temperature and E modes can allow this hypothesis to be rejected with a moderate level of probability.

The origin of small deviations from statistical isotropy in the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) — the so-called CMB anomalies — remains an open question in modern cosmology. In this work, we test statistical isotropy in Planck Data Release 4 (PR4) by estimating the temperature and E -mode power spectra across independent sky regions. We find that the directions with higher local bandpower amplitudes in intensity are clustered for multipoles between 200 and 2000 with clustering probabilities consistently below 1% for all these scales when compared to end-to-end (E2E) Planck simulations; notably, this range extends beyond that reported in Planck Data Release 3 (PR3). On the other hand, no significant clustering is observed in the polarisation E -modes. In a complementary analysis, we search for dipolar variations in cosmological parameters fitted using the previously computed power spectra. When combining temperature and polarisation power spectra, we identify a potential anomaly in the amplitude of the primordial power spectrum, A _s , with only 5 out of 600 simulations exhibiting a dipole amplitude as large as that observed in the data. Interestingly, the dipole direction aligns closely with the known hemispherical power asymmetry, suggesting a potential link between these anomalies. All other cosmological parameters remain consistent with ΛCDM expectations. Our findings highlight the need to further investigate these anomalies and understand their nature and potential implications for better understanding of the early Universe.

Cosmic microwave background (CMB) photons are deflected by large-scale structure through gravitational lensing. This secondary effect introduces higher-order correlations in CMB anisotropies, which are used to reconstruct lensing deflections. This allows mapping of the integrated matter distribution along the line of sight, probing the growth of structure, and recovering an undistorted view of the last-scattering surface. Gravitational lensing has been measured by previous CMB experiments, with Planck 's 42 σ detection being the current best full-sky lensing map. We present an enhanced LiteBIRD lensing map by extending the CMB multipole range and including the minimum-variance estimation, leading to a 49 to 58 σ detection over 80 % of the sky, depending on the final complexity of polarized Galactic emission. The combination of Planck and LiteBIRD will be the best full-sky lensing map in the 2030s, providing a 72 to 78 σ detection over 80 % of the sky, almost doubling Planck 's sensitivity. Finally, we explore different applications of the lensing map, including cosmological parameter estimation using a lensing-only likelihood and internal delensing, showing that the combination of both experiments leads to improved constraints. The combination of Planck + LiteBIRD will improve the S ₈ constraint by a factor of 2 compared to Planck , and Planck + LiteBIRD internal delensing will improve LiteBIRD 's tensor-to-scalar ratio constraint by 6 %. We have tested the robustness of our results against foreground models of different complexity, showing that improvements remain even for the most complex foregrounds.

Recent observations have indicated a Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) temperature decrement in the direction of local galaxies within the 2MASS Redshift Survey. We investigate this detection by analyzing its frequency dependence and sensitivity to component separation methods, suggesting that Galactic foregrounds are unlikely to be the cause. Contrary to previous studies, we find that the decrement is independent of galaxy type, indicating a possible correlation between the CMB and the overall matter density field. To test this hypothesis, we employ three analytical approaches: cross-correlation analysis, template fitting, and Bayes Factor calculation. Our analyses consistently reveal a moderate correlation (with significance levels in the 1% – 5% range) between the CMB and the 2MASS Redshift Survey projected matter density at distances below 50 Mpc/h. Importantly, we do not detect this signal beyond 50 Mpc/h, which constrains potential physical interpretations and suggests caution regarding possible look-elsewhere effects in our analysis. We discuss that the physical origin of this correlation could potentially be linked to the dark matter distribution in the halos of galaxies. Further investigation is required to confirm and understand this intriguing connection between the CMB and local matter distribution.

The presence of astrophysical emissions in microwave observations forces us to perform component separation to extract the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) signal. However, even in the most optimistic cases, there are still strongly contaminated regions, such as the Galactic plane or those with emission from extragalactic point sources, which require the use of a mask. Since many CMB analyses, especially the ones working in harmonic space, need the whole sky map, it is crucial to develop a reliable inpainting algorithm that replaces the values of the excluded pixels by others statistically compatible with the rest of the sky. This is especially important when working with Q and U sky maps in order to obtain E- and B-mode maps which are free from E-to-B leakage. In this work we study a method based on Gaussian Constrained Realizations (GCR), that can deal with both intensity and polarization. Several tests have been performed to asses the validation of the method, including the study of the one-dimensional probability distribution function (1-PDF), E- and B-mode map reconstruction, and power spectra estimation. We have considered two scenarios for the input simulation: one case with only CMB signal and a second one including also Planck PR4 semi-realistic noise. Even if we are limited to low resolution maps, N_side = 64 if T, Q and U are considered, we believe that this is a useful approach to be applied to future missions such as LiteBIRD, where the target are the largest scales.

Recent observations have indicated a Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) temperature decrement in the direction of local galaxies within the 2MASS Redshift Survey. We investigate this detection by analyzing its frequency dependence and sensitivity to component separation methods, suggesting that Galactic foregrounds are unlikely to be the cause. Contrary to previous studies, we find that the decrement is independent of galaxy type, indicating a possible correlation between the CMB and the overall matter density field. To test this hypothesis, we employ three analytical approaches: cross-correlation analysis, template fitting, and Bayes Factor calculation. Our cross-correlation analysis shows a significant correlation (p < 0.7%) between the CMB and the 2MASS Redshift Survey projected matter density at distances below 50 Mpc/h. Template fitting and Bayes Factor analyses support this finding, albeit with lower significance levels (1% - 5%). Importantly, we do not detect this signal beyond 50 Mpc/h, which constrains potential physical interpretations. We discuss that the physical origin of this correlation could potentially be linked to the dark matter distribution in the halos of galaxies. Further investigation is required to confirm and understand this intriguing connection between the CMB and local matter distribution.

One of the foundations of the Standard Model of Cosmology is statistical isotropy, which can be tested, among other probes, through the study of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). However, a hemispherical power asymmetry on large scales has been reported for WMAP and Planck data by different works. The statistical significance is above 3σ for temperature, suggesting a directional dependence of the local power spectrum, and thus a feature beyond the ΛCDM model. With the third release of the Planck data (PR3), a new analysis was performed including the E-mode polarization maps, finding an asymmetry at a modest level of significance. In this work, we perform an asymmetry analysis in intensity and polarization maps for the latest Planck processing pipeline (PR4). We obtain similar results to those obtained with PR3, with a slightly lower significance (2.8% for the Sevem method) for the amplitude of the E-mode local variance dipole as well as a significant variability with the considered mask. In addition, a hint of a possible T-E alignment between the asymmetry axes is found at the level of ∼ 5%. For the analysis, we have implemented an alternative inpainting approach in order to get an accurate reconstruction of the E-modes. More sensitive all-sky CMB polarization data, such as those expected from the future LiteBIRD experiment, are needed to reach a more robust conclusion on the possible existence of deviations from statistical isotropy in the form of a hemispherical power asymmetry.