2002/11/30 by Jeffrey R. Weeks · 2 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena #Noncommutative and Quantum Gravity Theories #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1142/s021773230301212x
published as Mod.Phys.Lett. A18 (2003) 2099-2107 · 9 pages, 5 figures
arxiv created 2002/11/30 · openalex publication_date 2003/09/28 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Cosmic microwave background data shows the observable universe to be nearly flat, but leaves open the question of whether it is simply or multiply connected. Several authors have investigated whether the topology of a multiconnected hyperbolic universe would be detectable when 0.9<Ω<1. However, the possibility of detecting a given topology varies depending on the location of the observer within the space. Recent studies have assumed the observer sits at a favorable location. The present paper extends that work to consider observers at all points in the space, and (for given values of Ω m and Ω Λ and a given topology) computes the probability that a randomly placed observer could detect the topology. The computations show that when Ω=0.98 a randomly placed observer has a reasonable chance (~50%) of detecting a hyperbolic topology, but when Ω=0.99 the chances are low (<10%) and decrease still further as Ω approaches one.