Dr. Gerritt Verschuur

Physics Department

The University of Memphis

October 24, 2007
4:00 pm,  Manning Hall room 201

Spatial associations have been found between interstellar neutral hydrogen (HI) emission morphology and small-scale structure observed by the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP). The HI distribution toward the  brightest peaks in the WMAP Internal Linear Combination (ILC) map for one area of sky is examined and by comparing  with a second area on the sky it is demonstrated that the associations do not appear to be the result of chance coincidence. 

Close examination of several of the associations reveals important new properties of diffuse interstellar neutral hydrogen structure. Overall, the data suggest that much of the small angular-scale structure observed by WMAP, which is widely interpreted as having a cosmological origin (that is, related to the Big Bang), may in fact originate in a previously unrecognized process occurring close to us in the Milky Way galaxy.