Missing Power vs low-l Alignments in the Cosmic Microwave Background: No
  Correlation in the Standard Cosmological Model
  On large angular scales (greater than about 60 degrees), the two-point
angular correlation function of the temperature of the cosmic microwave
background (CMB), as measured (outside of the plane of the Galaxy) by the
Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe, shows significantly lower large-angle
correlations than expected from the standard inflationary cosmological model.
Furthermore, when derived from the full CMB sky, the two lowest cosmologically
interesting multipoles, the quadrupole (l=2) and the octopole (l=3), are
unexpectedly aligned with each other. Using randomly generated full-sky and
cut-sky maps, we investigate whether these anomalies are correlated at a
statistically significant level. We conclusively demonstrate that, assuming
Gaussian random and statistically isotropic CMB anisotropies, there is no
statistically significant correlation between the missing power on large
angular scales in the CMB and the alignment of the l=2 and l=3 multipoles. The
chance to measure the sky with both such a lack of large-angle correlation and
such an alignment of the low multipoles is thus quantified to be below 10^{-6}.
