Point-source power in 3 year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe data

Using a set of multifrequency cross spectra computed from the 3 year WMAP sky maps, we fit for the unresolved point-source contribution. For a white-noise power spectrum, we find a Q-band amplitude of A = 0.011 +/- mu K-2 sr (antenna temperature), significantly smaller than the value of 0.001 +/- 0.017 mu K sr used to correct the spectra in the WMAP release. Modifying the point-source correction in this way largely resolves the discrepancy that Eriksen et al. found between the WMAP V- and W-band power spectra. Correcting the co-added WMAP spectrum for both the low-l power excess due to a suboptimal likelihood approximation-also reported by Eriksen et al. -and the high-l power deficit due to oversubtracted point sources-presented in this Letter-we find that the net effect in terms of cosmological parameters is an similar to 0.7 sigma shift in n(s) to larger values. For the combination of WMAP, BOOMERANG, and ACBAR data, we find n(s) = 0.969 +/- 0.016 lowering the significance of ns not equal 1 from similar to 2.7 sigma to similar to 2.0 sigma.