The Shape and Topology of the Universe
Astrophysics
2008-02-18 v1
Abstract
What is the shape of the Universe? Is it curved or flat, finite or infinite ? Is space "wrapped around" to create ghost images of faraway cosmic sources? We review how tessellations allow to build multiply-connected 3D Riemannian spaces useful for cosmology. We discuss more particularly the proposal of a finite, positively curved, dodecahedral space for explaining some puzzling features of the cosmic microwave background radiation, as revealed by the 2003-2006 WMAP data releases.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.0802.2236,
title = {The Shape and Topology of the Universe},
author = {Jean-Pierre Luminet},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0802.2236},
year = {2008}
}
Comments
21 pages, 11 figures. Proceedings of conference "Tessellations : The world a jigsaw", Leyden (Netherlands), march 2006