The Cosmological Dipole in Tilted Anisotropic Universes

Published in Physical Review D (Submitted), 2025

Recommended citation: A. Martín, C. Skordis, D.J. Bartlett, H. Desmond, P.G. Ferreira and T. Yasin (2025). "The Cosmological Dipole in Tilted Anisotropic Universes." arXiv:2512.03867.

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Abstract

There is tentative evidence for a mismatch between the rest frames of matter and the cosmic microwave background, the “quasar dipole anomaly”. We consider such a dipole in tilted anisotropic models, for a range of scenarios and sources: spatial curvature, cosmic heat flux, large scale electromagnetic fields and a Khronon field. Crucially, we determine the ancillary effects on other cosmological observables in each of these models and we show that, apart from the case of the Khronon field, it is unlikely that one can obtain a dipole with the amplitude that is being observed unless one considers additional exotica.