A reassessment of LVE method and hemispherical power asymmetry in CMB temperature data from Planck PR4

Abstract

We undertake a reassessment of one of the large angular scale anomalies observed in cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature signal referred to as Hemispherical Power Asymmetry (HPA). For the present analysis we use \texttt{SEVEM} cleaned CMB maps from \emph{Planck}'s 2020 final data release (public release 4/PR4). To probe HPA, we employed the local variance estimator (LVE) method with different disc radii ranging from $0.5^\circ$ to $90^\circ$. Our emphasis here is to revalidate the LVE method in various ways for its optimal usage and probe the hemispherical power asymmetry in the form of a dipole modulation field underlying CMB sky. By and large, our results are in agreement with earlier reported ones with more detailed presentation of explicit and not-so-explicit assumptions involved in the estimation process. It is reaffirmed that HPA is confined to low multipoles or large angular scales of the CMB sky. A dipole like anisotropy was found in the LVE maps with anomalous power for disc radii of $2^\circ$ and upward up to $36^\circ$ at $\gtrsim2σ$ level. In the range $4^\circ$ to $10^\circ$ none of the 600 \sevem\ CMB simulations were found to have a dipole amplitude higher than the data when using LVE method as originally proposed. The above reported values fall in the reliability range of LVE method after this extensive re-evaluation. We also observe a scale dependence of the HPA dipole amplitude and model it as a power-law. We conclude that the hemispherical power asymmetry still remains as a challenge to the standard model.