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Considerations in the Interpretation of Cosmological Anomalies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2015

Hiranya V. Peiris
Hiranya V. Peiris*
Affiliation:
Department of Physics and Astronomy, University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, United Kingdom email: h.peiris@ucl.ac.uk
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Abstract

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Anomalies drive scientific discovery – they are associated with the cutting edge of the research frontier, and thus typically exploit data in the low signal-to-noise regime. In astronomy, the prevalence of systematics –- both “known unknowns” and “unknown unknowns” – combined with increasingly large datasets, the widespread use of ad hoc estimators for anomaly detection, and the “look-elsewhere” effect, can lead to spurious false detections. In this informal note, I argue that anomaly detection leading to discoveries of new physics requires a combination of physical understanding, careful experimental design to avoid confirmation bias, and self-consistent statistical methods. These points are illustrated with several concrete examples from cosmology.

Keywords

cosmic microwave backgroundcosmological parametersearly universecosmology: miscellaneousmethods: statisticalmethods: data analysis
Type
Contributed Papers
Information
Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union , Volume 10 , Symposium S306: Statistical Challenges in 21st Century Cosmology , May 2014 , pp. 124 - 130
Copyright
Copyright © International Astronomical Union 2015 

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