A survey of lens spaces and large-scale CMB anisotropy

Abstract

The cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropy possesses the remarkable property that its power is strongly suppressed on large angular scales. This observational fact can naturally be explained by cosmological models with a non-trivial topology. The paper focuses on lens spaces L(p,q) which are realised by a tessellation of the spherical 3-space S^3 by cyclic deck groups of order p<=72. The investigated cosmological parameter space covers the interval Omega_tot \in [1.001,1.05]. Several spaces are found which have CMB correlations on angular scales theta >= 60^\circ suppressed by a factor of two compared to the simply connected S^3 space. The analysis is based on the S statistics, and a comparison to the WMAP 7yr data is carried out. Although the CMB suppression is less pronounced than in the Poincare dodecahedral space, these lens spaces provide an alternative worth for follow-up studies.