Can Relic Superhorizon Inhomogeneities be Responsible for Large-Scale CMB Anomalies?

Understand

We investigate the effects of the presence of relic classical superhorizon inhomogeneities during inflation.

• This superhorizon inhomogeneity appears as a gradient locally and picks out a preferred direction.
• Quantum fluctuations on this slightly inhomogeneous background are generally statistical anisotropic.
• We find a quadrupole modification to the ordinary isotropic spectrum.