The Hantzsche-Wendt Manifold in Cosmic Topology

Abstract

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 fewer matched back-to-back circle pairs on the cosmic microwave background (CMB) sky than the other compact flat spaces, it can escape the detection by a search for matched circle pairs. The suppression of temperature correlations C(theta) on large angular scales on the CMB sky is studied. It is shown that the large-scale correlations are of the same order as for the 3-torus topology but express a much larger variability. The Hantzsche-Wendt manifold provides a topological possibility with reduced large-angle correlations that can hide from searches for matched back-to-back circle pairs.