Inflaton two-point correlation in the presence of a cosmic string

Precise measurements of the microwave background anisotropy have confirmed the inflationary picture of approximately scale invariant, Gaussian primordial adiabatic density perturbations. However, there are some anomalies that suggest a small violation of rotational and/or translational invariance in the mechanism that generates the primordial density fluctuations. Motivated by this we study the two-point correlation of a massless scalar (the inflaton) when the stress tensor contains the energy density from an infinitely long straight cosmic string in addition to a cosmological constant.