Probing CMB Cold Spot through Local Minkowski Functionals

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Both WMAP and PLANCK missions reported the extremely Cold Spot (CS) centered at Galactic coordinate (l=209∘, b=-57∘) in CMB map. In this paper, we study the local non-Gaussianity of CS by defining the local Minkowski functions. We find that the third Minkowski function ν₂ is quite sensitive to the non-Gaussianity caused by CS. Compared with the random Gaussian simulations, WMAP CS deviates from Gaussianity at more than 99% confident level at the scale R 10∘. Meanwhile, we find that cosmic texture provides an excellent explanation for these anomalies related to WMAP CS, which could be further tested by the future polarization data.