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New physics from the polarised light of the cosmic microwave background
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abstract
Cosmology requires new physics beyond the Standard Model of elementary particles and fields. What is the fundamental physics behind dark matter and dark energy? What generated the initial fluctuations in the early Universe? Polarised light of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) may hold the key to answers. In this article, we discuss two new developments in this research area. First, if the physics behind dark matter and dark energy violates parity symmetry, their coupling to photons rotates the plane of linear polarisation as the CMB photons travel more than 13 billion years. This effect is known as `cosmic birefringence': space filled with dark matter and dark energy behaves as if it were a birefringent material, like a crystal. A tantalising hint for such a signal has been found with the statistical significance of $3\sigma$. Next, the period of accelerated expansion in the very early Universe, called `cosmic inflation', produced a stochastic background of primordial gravitational waves (GW). What generated GW? The leading idea is vacuum fluctuations in spacetime, but matter fields could also produce a significant amplitude of primordial GW. Finding its origin using CMB polarisation opens a new window into the physics behind inflation. These new scientific targets may influence how data from future CMB experiments are collected, calibrated, and analysed.
Forward citations
Cited by 16 Pith papers
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CMB Birefringence from Vacuum Interfaces
CMB polarization rotation emerges as a Pancharatnam phase localized at dark sector vacuum interfaces, independent of redshift, frequency, and the presence of light axions.
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Spinoptics in the presence of axion-like particles in curved spacetime
Spinoptics equations for axion–Maxwell theory yield helicity-dependent photon trajectory corrections from both spacetime curvature and arbitrary axion profiles.
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3-form dark energy and cosmic birefringence
3-form dark energy can explain cosmic birefringence with a dimension-4 photon coupling, yielding redshift profiles that can mimic or differ from axion dark energy, but the implied photon mass estimate is numerically shaky.
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Probing Parity Violation with Weak Lensing Trispectrum
A parity-odd weak lensing convergence trispectrum is derived and forecast to be detectable with DES Y3/LSST Y10-like surveys under optimistic template amplitudes.
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Parity-violating spatially covariant gravity at total derivative order $d=5$
At total derivative order five, parity-violating spatially covariant gravity has exactly 59 independent monomials, and their tensor-perturbation response is controlled by four coefficient combinations producing helici...
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Wigner function shapelets: Symplectic representation of astronomical images
A phase-space basis ('Wigner function shapelets') is constructed for galaxy images, with explicit formulas for weak-lensing responses and a proposed parity-violation probe.
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Planck constraints on the scale dependence of isotropic cosmic birefringence
Planck polarization data favor a constant cosmic birefringence angle (β≈0.3°) across multipoles, with scale dependence consistent with zero at up to 1.8σ.
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Twisted echoes of an odd quartet: Scalar-induced gravitational waves as a probe of primordial parity-violation
A parity-odd primordial trispectrum imprints measurable left-right asymmetry in scalar-induced gravitational waves, and the chirality ratio directly tracks the parity-odd to parity-even trispectrum amplitude ratio.
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CMB Lensing Trispectrum as a Probe of Parity Violation in LSS
The CMB lensing trispectrum is sensitive to parity violation in large-scale structure, and a parity-odd toy model predicts a detectable signal in idealized noiseless forecasts.
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Wading the String Bog: CMB Birefringence in the Swampland
Ultralight-axion explanations of cosmic birefringence sit in tension with Swampland bounds, while thin axionic domain walls predict exactly isotropic birefringence, so anisotropy measurements can discriminate the alte...
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Simultaneous inference of isotropic and anisotropic polarization rotation angles for next-generation cosmic microwave background experiments
A Bayesian power-spectrum framework simultaneously infers isotropic and anisotropic cosmic birefringence angles, instrumental miscalibration angles, and foreground parameters from simulated multi-frequency next-genera...
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Constraining primordial non-Gaussianity and parity-violation through Scalar-Induced Gravitational Waves with next-generation ground-based interferometers
ET+CE forecast: injected SIGW parameters (A_p, f_peak, f_NL, tau_NL, parity-odd tau_tilde_NL) are recovered within 1-2 sigma despite an astrophysical foreground, but the chiral V-mode is sub-threshold (SNR 0.5-1.9).
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Electromagnetic Couplings of Dark Domain Walls
A Chern–Simons coupling between photons and a dark 3-form is claimed to rotate CMB polarization by ~10^-3 rad when light crosses dark domain walls, but the derivation has boundary-condition errors and the signal is fi...
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Axion-Photon Conversion in FLRW with Primordial Magnetic Fields: Explaining the Radio Excess
Resonant conversion of axion-like particles into photons in nanogauss primordial magnetic fields is claimed to explain both the ARCADE2 radio excess and the EDGES 21-cm trough for axion masses near 10^-14 to 10^-12 eV.
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Planck PR4 (NPIPE) map-space cosmic birefringence
A map-space stacking analysis of Planck PR4 maps finds a CMB polarization rotation angle of about 0.46 to 0.48 degrees, dominated by instrument calibration uncertainty and consistent with no parity-violating cosmic bi...
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Cosmic Polarisation Rotation from CMB Data: a Review for GR110
A review of CMB constraints on cosmic birefringence, reporting a possible 3 sigma hint for isotropic rotation and null anisotropic results.
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