Spatial variation of the fine-structure parameter and the cosmic microwave background

We study the effects on cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature and polarization anisotropies of spatial fluctuations of the fine-structure parameter between causally disconnected regions of the Universe at the time of recombination. Analogous to weak gravitational lensing, in addition to modifying the mean power spectra and inducing a curl component (B mode) to the polarization, spatial fluctuations of the fine-structure parameter induce higher-order (non-Gaussian) temperature and polarization correlations in the CMB. We calculate these effects for the general case of arbitrary correlation between temperature fluctuations and fine-structure parameter fluctuations, and show the results for a model where these two types of fluctuations are uncorrelated. The formalism we present here may also be applied to other modifications of recombination physics that do not significantly alter the evolution of the dominant density perturbations. We discuss the constraints on the effective Lagrangian for the variable fine-structure parameter necessary to realize this scenario.