CMB Cold Spot - Possible Causes Other Than Primordial Temperature Fluctuation - Parallel Universe

Parallel Universe

A controversial claim by Laura Mersini-Houghton is that it could be the imprint of another universe beyond our own, caused by quantum entanglement between universes before they were separated by cosmic inflation. Laura Mersini-Houghton said, "Standard cosmology cannot explain such a giant cosmic hole" and made the remarkable hypothesis that the WMAP cold spot is "… the unmistakable imprint of another universe beyond the edge of our own." If true this provides the first empirical evidence for a parallel universe (though theoretical models of parallel universes existed previously). It would also support string theory. The team claims there are testable consequences for its theory. If the parallel universe theory is true there will be a similar void in the opposite hemisphere of the Celestial sphere (which New Scientist reported to be the Southern hemisphere; the results of the New Mexico array study reported it as Northern hemisphere).

A sophisticated method of data analysis - Kolmogorov complexity - has derived evidence for a north and a south cold spot in the satellite data: "...among the high randomness regions is the southern non-Gaussian anomaly, the Cold Spot, with a stratification expected for the voids. Existence of its counterpart, a Northern Cold Spot with almost identical randomness properties among other low-temperature regions is revealed."

These predictions and others were made prior to the measurements (see Laura Mersini). However, apart from the Southern Cold Spot, the varied statistical methods in general fail to confirm each other regarding a Northern Cold Spot. The 'K-map' used to detect the Northern Cold Spot was noted to have twice the measure of randomness measured in the standard model - the reason is speculated to be the randomness introduced by voids (unaccounted-for voids were speculated to be the reason for the increased randomness above the standard model).