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[Abridged] In a Universe with a detectable nontrivial spatial topology the last scattering surface contains pairs of matching circles with the same distribution of temperature fluctuations - the so-called circles-in-the-sky. Searches for nearly antipodal circles in maps of cosmic microwave background have so far been unsuccessful. This negative outcome along with recent theoretical results concerning the detectability of nearly flat compact topologies is sufficient to exclude a detectable nontrivial topology for most observers in very nearly flat positively and negatively curved Universes ($0<|Omega_{tot}-1| lesssim 10^{-5}$). Here we investigate the consequences of these searches for observable nontrivial topologies if the Universe turns out to be exactly flat ($Omega_{tot}=1$). We demonstrate that in this case the conclusions deduced from such searches can be radically different. We show that for all multiply-connected orientable flat manifolds it is possible to directly study the action of the holonomies in order to obtain a general upper bound on the angle that characterizes the deviation from antipodicity of pairs of matching circles associated with the shortest closed geodesic. This bound is valid for all observers and all possible values of the compactification length parameters. We also show that in a flat Universe there are observers for whom the circles-in-the-sky searches already undertaken are insufficient to exclude the possibility of a detectable nontrivial spatial topology. It is remarkable how such small variations in the spatial curvature of the Universe, which are effectively indistinguishable geometrically, can have such a drastic effect on the detectability of cosmic topology.
While the topology of the Universe is at present not specified by any known fundamental theory, it may in principle be determined through observations. In particular, a non-trivial topology will generate pairs of matching circles of temperature fluct
An important, and potentially detectable, signature of a non-trivial topology for the universe is the presence of so called circles-in-the-sky in the cosmic microwave background (CMB). Recent searches, confined to antipodal and nearly antipodal circl
[Abridged] An observable signature of a detectable nontrivial spatial topology of the Universe is the circles-in-the-sky in the CMB sky. In the most general search, pairs of circles with deviation from antipodality $0^circ leq theta leq 169^circ$ and
In a Universe with a detectable nontrivial spatial topology the last scattering surface contains pairs of matching circles with the same distribution of temperature fluctuations --- the so-called circles-in-the-sky. Searches undertaken for nearly ant
The existence of concentric low variance circles in the CMB sky, generated by black-hole encounters in an aeon preceding our big bang, is a prediction of the Conformal Cyclic Cosmology. Detection of three families of such circles in WMAP data was rec