Evidence of quasi-linear super-structures in the cosmic microwave background and galaxy distribution

Abstract

Recent measurements of hot and cold spots on the cosmic microwave background (CMB) sky suggest the presence of super-structures on (> 100 h-1 Mpc) scales. We develop a new formalism to estimate the expected amplitude of temperature fluctuations due to the integrated Sachs-Wolfe (ISW) effect from prominent quasi-linear structures. Applying the developed tools to the observed ISW signals from voids and clusters in catalogs of galaxies at redshifts z < 1, we find that they indeed imply a presence of quasi-linear super-structures with a comoving radius of 100 ∼ 300h-1 Mpc and a density contrast |δ| ∼ O(0.1). We also find that the observed ISW signals are at odds with the concordant A cold dark matter model that predicts Gaussian primordial perturbations at ≳3σ level. We confirm that the mean temperature around the CMB cold spot in the southern Galactic hemisphere filtered by a compensating top-hat filter deviates from the mean value at ∼3σ level, implying that a quasi-linear supervoid or an underdensity region surrounded by a massive wall may reside at low redshifts z > 0.3 and the actual angular size (16°-17°) may be larger than the apparent size (4°-10°) discussed in literature. Possible solutions are briefly discussed. © 2010. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.