Polynomial interpretation of multipole vectors

Physical Review D - Particles, Fields, Gravitation and Cosmology

Volumn 70, Issue 6, 2004, Pages

  Katz, Gabriel ^a   Weeks, Jeff ^b  

^a BENNINGTON COLLEGE   (United States)

^b NONE   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ALGORITHM; ANISOTROPY; ARTICLE; MATHEMATICAL ANALYSIS; MICROWAVE RADIATION; MONTE CARLO METHOD; THEORY;

EID: 84927713587     PISSN: 05562821     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevD.70.063527     Document Type: Article

References (9)

1. C. Bennett et al., Astrophys. J. Suppl. Ser. 148, 1 (2003).
2. M. Tegmark, A. de Oliveira-Costa, and A. J. S. Hamilton, Phys. Rev. D 68, 123523 (2003).
3. The statistical test of Ref. [4] assigns a score of 99.97% to the first-year WMAP data. However, far more than 0.03% of all appropriate Gaussian random skies, when substituted for the WMAP data as the starting point of the algorithm, would achieve a score of 99.97% or better. Indeed, it is conceivable that 1% or more of the random skies would score 99.97% or better on that test. Therefore, even though Schwarz et al. compute the score of 99.97% correctly, this score cannot be interpreted as a confidence level. Fortunately, when Schwarz et al. apply different statistical tests to their data, they obtain a score of 99.9% that can be directly interpreted as a confidence level. Thus, the statistical significance of their claims remains excellent.
4. D. J. Schwarz, G. D. Starkman, D. Huterer, and C. J. Copi, astro-ph/0403353.
5. H. K. Eriksen, A. J. Banday, K. M. Górski, and P. B. Lilje, astro-ph/0403098.
6. C. J. Copi, D. Huterer, and G. D. Starkman, Phys. Rev. D 70, 043515 (2004).
7. M. Reid, Undergraduate Algebraic Geometry (Cambridge University, Cambridge, England, 1988).
8. D. Huterer and G. D. Starkman (private communication).
9. G. D. Starkman (private communication).