The interacting multiverse and its effect on the cosmic microwave background

Abstract

We study a toy model of a multiverse consisting of canonically quantized universes that interact with each other on a quantum level based on a field-theoretical formulation of the Wheeler-DeWitt equation. This interaction leads to the appearance of a pre-inflationary phase in the evolution of the individual universes. We analyze scalar perturbations within the model and calculate the influence of the pre-inflationary phase onto the power spectrum of these perturbations. The result is that there is a suppression of power on large scales, which can describe well the Planck 2018 data for the cosmic microwave background anisotropies and could thus indicate a possible solution to the observed quadrupole discrepancy.

Comments: 28 pages, 8 figures, clarifications and references added, published in the Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics