Angular-planar CMB power spectrum
  Gaussianity and statistical isotropy of the Universe are modern cosmology's
minimal set of hypotheses. In this work we introduce a new statistical test to
detect observational deviations from this minimal set. By defining the
temperature correlation function over the whole celestial sphere, we are able
to independently quantify both angular and planar dependence (modulations) of
the CMB temperature power spectrum over different slices of this sphere. Given
that planar dependence leads to further modulations of the usual angular power
spectrum $C_l$, this test can potentially reveal richer structures in the
morphology of the primordial temperature field. We have also constructed an
unbiased estimator for this angular-planar power spectrum which naturally
generalizes the estimator for the usual $C_l$'s. With the help of a chi-square
analysis, we have used this estimator to search for observational deviations of
statistical isotropy in WMAP's 5 year release data set (ILC5), where we found
only slight anomalies on the angular scales $l=7$ and $l=8$. Since this
angular-planar statistic is model-independent, it is ideal to employ in
searches of statistical anisotropy (e.g., contaminations from the galactic
plane) and to characterize non-Gaussianities.
