SIToolBox : A package for Bayesian estimation of the isotropy violation in the CMB sky

Abstract

The standard model of cosmology predicts a statistically isotropic (SI) CMB sky. However, the SI violation signals are always present in an observed sky-map. Different cosmological artifacts, measurement effects and unavoidable effects during data analysis etc. may lead to isotropy violation in an otherwise SI sky. Therefore, a proper data analysis technique should calculate all these SI violation signals, so that they can be matched with SI violation signals from the known sources and then conclude if there is any intrinsic SI violation in the CMB sky. In one of our recent works, we presented a general Bayesian formalism for measuring the isotropy violation signals in the CMB sky in presence of an idealized isotropic noise. In this paper, we have extended the mechanism and develop a software package, SIToolBox, for measuring SI violation in presence of anisotropic noise and masking.