Primordial quantum fluctuations produced by inflation are conventionally assumed to be statistically homogeneous, a consequence of translational invariance. In this paper we quantify the potentially observable effects of a small violation of translational invariance during inflation, as characterized by the presence of a preferred point, line, or plane. We explore the imprint such a violation would leave on the cosmic microwave background anisotropy, and provide explicit formulas for the expected amplitudes $⟨a_{lm}{a}_{l^{\prime }{m}^{\prime }}^{*}⟩$ of the spherical-harmonic coefficients.

• Received 27 August 2009

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.81.083501