Power asymmetry in WMAP and Planck temperature sky maps as measured by a local variance estimator

Abstract: We revisit the question of hemispherical power asymmetry in the WMAP and Planck temperature sky maps by measuring the local variance over the sky and on disks of various sizes. For the 2013 Planck sky map we find that none of the 1000 available isotropic Planck "Full Focal Plane" simulations have a larger variance asymmetry than that estimated from the data, suggesting the presence of an anisotropic signature formally significant at least at the $3.3\sigma$ level. For the WMAP 9-year data we find that 5 out of 1000 simulations have a larger asymmetry. The preferred direction for the asymmetry from the Planck data is $(l,b)=(212^\circ,-13^\circ)$, in good agreement with previous reports of the same hemispherical power asymmetry.