Large-angle CMB anomalies and cosmic isotropy
The cosmic microwave background is a nearly uniform glow from when the universe was 380,000 years old, with tiny hot and cold spots. On the largest angles those spots show patterns (missing correlations, alignments, a lopsided sky) that the standard model rates as unlikely, and the distribution of distant galaxies on the sky does not quite match our motion inferred from the glow.
Why it matters
If any of these patterns is physical it points to new physics on the scale of the observable universe or to a breakdown of the assumption that the universe looks the same in every direction.
Review
Schwarz D.J., Copi C.J., Huterer D., Starkman G.D., CMB anomalies after Planck, Classical and Quantum Gravity, 2016. https://arxiv.org/abs/1510.07929 reference checked
Timestamp record
- Signed record
- 803af421679c…
- Public log
- Entry 182, in checkpoint 2,123
- In the log by
- Block 969,698, 2026-10-03
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