Orbifold Line Topology and the Cosmic Microwave Background

Abstract

We extend our study of a universe with a non-classical stringy topology, and consider an orbifold line topology, $\mathbb{R}\times {\mathbb{R}}^2/{\mathbb{Z}}_p$. This topology has a fixed line and identifies each point in space with $p-1$ other points. An observable imprint of an orbifold line on the CMB is the appearance of up to $(p-1)/2$ pairs of matching circles. Searching the WMAP data for matching circles, we can rule out an orbifold line topology with $p$ up to 10, except for $p=8$. While the significance of the peak at $p=8$ varies between data releases of WMAP, it does not appear in Planck data, enabling us to rule out $p=8$ as well.

7 pages, 6 figures. Published in JCAP

References in corpus (7)

• Nine-Year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Observations: Final Maps and Results
• Monodromy in the CMB: Gravity Waves and String Inflation
• String Cosmology: A Review
• Planck 2013 results. XII. Component separation
• Extending the WMAP Bound on the Size of the Universe
• Searching for Inflation in Simple String Theory Models: An Astrophysical Perspective
• Searching for Stringy Topologies in the Cosmic Microwave Background

Cited by in corpus (3)

• A search for cosmic topology in the final WMAP data
• Topology beyond the horizon: how far can it be probed?
• The Hantzsche-Wendt Manifold in Cosmic Topology