Delayed recombination

Under the standard model for recombination of the primeval plasma and the cold dark matter model for structure formation, recent measurements of the first peak in the angular power spectrum of the cosmic microwave background temperature indicate that the spatial geometry of the universe is nearly flat. If sources of Ly alpha resonance radiation, such as stars or active galactic nuclei, were present at z similar to 1000 they would delay recombination, shifting the first peak to larger angular scales and producing a positive bias in this measure of space curvature. It can be distinguished from space curvature by its suppression of the secondary peaks in the spectrum.