Related papers: Observable circles-in-the-sky in flat universes
The notion that the topology of the universe need not be that of the universal covering space of its geometry has recently received renewed attention. Generic signatures of cosmological topology have been sought, both in the distribution of…
When the topology of the universe is non trivial, it has been shown that there are constraints on the network of domain walls, cosmic strings and monopoles. I generalize these results to textures and study the cosmological implications of…
General relativity does not allow one to specify the topology of space, leaving the possibility that space is multiply rather than simply connected. We review the main mathematical properties of multiply connected spaces, and the different…
What is the shape of space is a long-standing question in cosmology. In this talk I review recent advances in cosmic topology since it has entered a new era of experimental tests. High redshift surveys of astronomical sources and accurate…
We study the possibility for constraining the topology of the Universe by means of the matched circles statistic applied to polarised cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropy maps. The advantages of using the CMB polarisation maps in…
Outside galaxy clusters the competition between the inwards gravitational attraction and the outwards expansion of the Universe leads to a special radius of velocity cancellation, which is called the turn-around radius. Measurements of the…
Cosmology's standard model posits an infinite flat universe forever expanding under the pressure of dark energy. First-year data from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) confirm this model to spectacular precision on all but the…
[Abridged] We apply the multipole vector framework to full-sky maps derived from the first year WMAP data. We significantly extend our earlier work showing that the two lowest cosmologically interesting multipoles, l=2 and 3, are not…
This review aims to cover the central aspects of current research in cosmic topology from a topological and observational perspective. Beginning with an overview of the basic concepts of cosmology, it is observed that though a determinant…
We investigate the potential of using cosmic voids as a probe to constrain cosmological parameters through the gravitational lensing effect of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) and make predictions for the next generation surveys. By…
The cosmic microwave background (CMB) is a unique probe of cosmological parameters and conditions. There is a connection between anisotropy in the CMB and the topology of the Universe. Adopting a universe with the topology of a 3-Torus, or…
Is the universe finite or infinite, and what shape does it have? These fundamental questions, of which relatively little is known, are typically studied within the context of the standard model of cosmology where the universe is assumed to…
The conventional $\Lambda$CDM cosmological model supplemented by the inflation concept describes the Universe very well. However, there are still a few concerns: new Planck data impose constraints on the shape of the inflaton potential,…
The question of the global topology of the Universe (cosmic topology) is still open. In the $\Lambda$CDM concordance model it is assumed that the space of the Universe possesses the trivial topology of $\mathbb{R}^3$ and thus that the…
``One could imagine that as a result of enormously extended astronomical experience, the entire universe consists of countless identical copies of our Milky Way, that the infinite space can be partitioned into cubes each containing an…
The Hantzsche-Wendt space is one of the 17 multiply connected spaces of the three-dimensional Euclidean space E^3. It is a compact and orientable manifold which can serve as a model for a spatial finite universe. Since it possesses much…
Although the cubic T^3 "small universe" has been ruled out by COBE/DMR results as an interesting cosmological model, we still have the possibility of living in a universe with a more anisotropic topology such as a rectangular T^3 "small…
We study a multipole vector-based decomposition of cosmic microwave background (CMB) data in order to search for signatures of a multiconnected topology of the universe. Using 10^6 simulated maps, we analyse the multipole vector…
New analysis confirms our earlier claim [1], [7] of circles of notably low temperature variance, often in concentric sets, in the cosmic microwave background (CMB), discernable in WMAP data. Their reality can be interpreted as evidence of…
In this paper we pursue a new technique to search for evidence of a finite Universe, making use of a spherical mexican-hat wavelet decomposition of the microwave background fluctuations. Using the information provided by the wavelet…