Large scale anisotropy due to pre-inflationary phase of cosmic evolution

Abstract

We show that perturbations generated during the anisotropic pre-inflationary stage of cosmic evolution may affect cosmological observations today for a certain range of parameters. Due to the anisotropic nature of the universe during such early times, it might explain some of the observed signals of large scale anisotropy. In particular we argue that the alignment of CMB quadrupole and octopole may be explained by the Sachs-Wolfe effect due to the large scale anisotropic modes from very early times of cosmological evolution. We also comment on how the observed dipole modulation of CMB power may be explained within this framework.

Comments: 15 pages, 2 figures, substantially revised to provide better explanation of our results, no change in results or conclusions