CMB Bispectrum from Non-linear Effects during Recombination

We study cosmological perturbations by solving the governing Boltzmann and Einstein Field equations up to second order, and calculate the corresponding CMB bispectrum during recombination. We include all the second-order Liouville and collision terms, truncating the multipole hierarchy at $l=10$, consistently including all $m\neq 0$ terms when calculating the bispectrum in the flat-sky limit. At this stage, we focus on contributions at recombination and we neglect 2nd-order vector and tensor terms, lensing effects, and late time non-linear ISW. We find that the signal-to-noise for the bispectrum is 0.69 for $l_{max}=2000$, yielding an overall signal $F_{\rm NL} = 3.19$ (normalised relative to the local model). We find that the effective $f_{NL}$'s of the equilateral and local type are 5.11 and 0.88 respectively. This recombination signal will have to be taken into account in a quantitative analysis of the Planck data.