Unexpected topology of the temperature fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background
Unexpected topology of the temperature fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background
We study the topology generated by the temperature fluctuations of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation, as quantified by the number of components and holes, formally given by the Betti numbers, in the growing excursion sets. We compare CMB maps observed by the Planck satellite with a thousand simulated maps …