A few years ago, Cornish, Spergel and Starkman ͑CSS͒ suggested that a multiply connected ''small'' universe could allow for classical chaotic mixing as a preinflationary homogenization process. The smaller the volume, the more important the process. Also, a smaller universe has a greater probability of being spontaneously created. Previously DeWitt, Hart and Isham ͑DHI͒ calculated the Casimir energy for static multiply connected flat space-times. Because of the interest in small volume hyperbolic universes ͑e.g., CSS͒, we generalize the DHI calculation by making a numerical investigation of the Casimir energy for a conformally coupled, massive scalar field in a static universe, whose spatial sections are the Weeks manifold, the smallest universe of negative curvature known. In spite of being a numerical calculation, our result is in fact exact. It is shown that there is spontaneous vacuum excitation of low multipolar components.
We present a modified version of the cosmic crystallography method, especially useful for testing closed models of negative spatial curvature. The images of clusters of galaxies in simulated catalogs are "pulled back" to the fundamental domain before the set of distances is calculated.
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