CMB cold spot from inflationary feature scattering

We propose a “feature-scattering” mechanism to explain the cosmic microwave background cold spot seen from WMAP and Planck   maps. If there are hidden features in the potential of multi-field inflation, the inflationary trajectory can be scattered by such features. The scattering is controlled by the amount of isocurvature fluctuations, and thus can be considered as a mechanism to convert isocurvature fluctuations into curvature fluctuations. This mechanism predicts localized cold spots (instead of hot ones) on the CMB. In addition, it may also bridge a connection between the cold spot and a dip on the CMB power spectrum at ℓ∼20ℓ∼20.