The most shocking image I have ever seen, of Earth in the center of the universe, is found on page 9 of the below new paper by Rubart and Schwarz:
Excerpts:
In order to figure out if our result is consistent with the null hypothesis that the radio sky is statistically isotropic, modified by the kinetic effects of our proper motion (measured via the CMB dipole), we performed 100,000 Monte Carlo simulations. The corresponding histogram is shown in figure 10. We find that only 21 of those realizations contain a dipole higher than the measured one and thus we can exclude that the estimated radio dipole is just due to our proper motion and amplitude bias at 99.6% CL. This is actually very puzzling, as the direction of the radio dipole agrees with the direction of the CMB dipole within the measurement error.
All measurements so far point towards a higher radio dipole amplitude than expected, when we assume that the cosmic radio dipole is just due to our peculiar motion with respect to the rest frame de- fined by the CMB. This is quite puzzling, as the orientation of the radio dipole agrees with the orientation of the CMB dipole within measurement errors.
Can't wait for ALMA to possibly corroborate this ☺
ReplyDeleteAlan, you have no idea how grateful I am to you for posting this.
ReplyDeleteI had completely forgotten about the utterly incredible- STUNNING!- time lapse cinematography of the night sky obtained at the ALMA site by some ESA guys....
http://www.dancingphysicist.com/incredible-time-lapse-of-the-night-sky-from-the-very-large-telescope-array/
THANKS!
I am going to try and license some of it pronto.
Rick, I have visited your blog several time. I am not good at math. would you briefly describe the implications of this?
ReplyDeleteHi Alan:
ReplyDeleteI will, and will include a mathematical treatment from a PhD in physics who has also responded privately to this post.
I will try and have it up today.
The basic implications are these:
1. The CMB dipole is 1000 times more evident than the other multipoles. It is aligned with the equinox plane.
2. This dipole has usually been attributed to the motion of the local system wrt the CMB "rest frame"; that is, the Earth and local system are assumed to be moving toward one side of the CMB and away from the other, thus redshifting one side and blueshifting the other- this is exactly what we see in the pictures of the CMB dipole.
3. An analysis of the "radio sky"; that is, all radio-emitting objects including galaxies and quasars, has shown that these objects also align preferentially along the same direction as the CMB dipole.
4. But we cannot attribute this radio dipole to the effects of motion. In fact the dipole is about 4x too large to be attributed to our motion.
5. This leaves us with the "puzzling" (understatement of the century) result that the CMB dipole is apparently not just a result of our motion, but is part of a general, anisotropic structure of space itself.
6. This anisotropic structure of space itslef happens to be aligned with the equinoctial plane of the Earth; that is, the universe is apparently divided neatly in two be our equinoxes.
7. This is of course impossible, under our present physics.
8. Yet there it is.
More to follow, with mathematical derivations.