Paper detail

Relics of spatial curvature in the primordial non-gaussianity

We study signatures in the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) induced by the presence of strong spatial curvature prior to the epoch of inflation which generated our present universe. If inflation does not last sufficiently long to drive the large-scale spatial curvature to zero, then presently observable scales may have left the horizon while spatial slices could not be approximated by a flat, Euclidean geometry. We compute corrections to the power spectrum and non-gaussianity of the CMB temperature anisotropy in this scenario. The power spectrum does not receive significant corrections and is a weak diagnostic of the presence of curvature in the initial conditions, unless its running can be determined with high accuracy. However, the bispectral non-gaussianity parameter f_NL receives modifications on the largest observable scales. We estimate that the maximum signal would correspond to f_NL ~ 0.3, which is out of reach for present-day microwave background experiments.