Cosmic microwave background alignment in multi-connected universes

The low multipoles of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropypossess some strange properties such as the alignment of the quadrupoleand the octopole, and the extreme planarity or the extreme sphericity ofsome multipoles. In this paper, the CMB anisotropy of severalmulti-connected space forms is investigated with respect to the maximalangular momentum dispersion and the Maxwellian multipole vectors inorder to settle the question of whether such spaces can explain the lowmultipole anomalies in the CMB. The following spaces are considered: thePicard topology in hyperbolic space, three spherical spaces(Poincaré dodecahedron, binary tetrahedron and binary octahedron)and a hypertorus in flat space. Although these spaces are able toproduce the large-scale suppression of the CMB anisotropy, they do notdescribe the CMB alignment. From the models considered, the Picarduniverse shows the strongest alignment properties.