WMAP tend to coincide with radio emissions from the Milky Way

[jal]

Have these papers been discused.
http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.1125
High Galactic Latitude Interstellar Neutral Hydrogen Structure and Associated (WMAP) High Frequency Continuum Emission
Authors: Gerrit L. Verschuur
(Submitted on 9 Apr 2007 (v1), last revised 23 Jul 2007 (this version, v2))

Tiny temperature variations found in maps of the cosmic microwave background are commonly thought to be proof that stars, galaxies and other large-scale structures grew from density perturbations in the early universe. But one physicist in the US is controversially claiming that these observed variations are in fact caused by hydrogen atoms in our own galaxy. If he is right, cosmologists will have to drastically rethink their models of the universe’s evolution.
Gerrit Verschuur, a physicist from the University of Memphis in the US, disagrees. He has noticed that the temperature variations recorded by WMAP tend to coincide with radio emissions from neutral hydrogen in the Milky Way. In other words, the fluctuations may not be part of the CMB at all (Astro. J. in publication; preprint available at arXiv.org:0704.1125v2).

http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.3021
On the Critical Ionization Velocity Effect in Interstellar Space and Possible Detection of Related Continuum Emission
Authors: Gerrit L. Verschuur
(Submitted on 23 Apr 2007)

 

[Garth]

An interesting paper, but also read this discussion in the CosmoCoffee forum , which concluded with this post by Richard Lieu (University of Alabama, Huntsville, Position: Professor of Physics,
Research Interests:clusters of galaxies & cosmology):

I performed an extensive study (with B. Z. Jiang, a PhD student of Prof. S.N. Zhang at Tsinghua, Beijing) using wavelet analysis of the WMAP and HI data, then cross comparing the number of close associations between the degree-scale wavelet hot spot centroids and HI clouds with that expected from simulated WMAP data where the hot spot locations are by definition randomized.

The verdict is that we found no statistically significant associations between the first acoustic peak hot spots and HI. We therefore cannot support the claim of Verschuur.

Garth

 

[Nereid]

For a laugh, you could also read v1 of the Verschuur paper (I think it's still available on arXiv), it contains some real howlers ...