Electromagnetic Couplings of Dark Domain Walls
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We extend Maxwell electrodynamics with a Chern--Simons coupling to a dark sector top form sourced by domain walls. Cosmic birefringence can arise from a distinct mechanism in which photon polarization is rotated when crossing vacuum interfaces, rather than through adiabatic propagation in a background field. Ultrathin walls induce a finite, frequency-independent polarization rotation generated by an electromagnetic Chern-Simons term localized at the interface. The effect persists even in the absence of ultralight axions or other propagating scalar degrees of freedom. For phenomenologically viable parameters, such walls can generate cosmic microwave background polarization rotation at the level $\Delta\vartheta \sim 10^{-3}$ rad, providing a signature of the topological structure of the dark-sector vacuum.
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Cited by 4 Pith papers
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Loss of the Scaling Attractor in Self-Gravitating Domain Wall Networks
Coupling domain wall networks to dynamical expansion shows the scaling attractor is lost, leading to wall-dominated frustration.
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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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Localization of Chiral Electromagnetic Waves on Thick Axion Domain Walls
Finite-width axion domain walls generically support a localized normalizable chiral electromagnetic mode with linear gapless dispersion arising from helicity-dependent coupling to the axion gradient.
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Chiral Electromagnetic Surface Waves on Chern-Simons Interfaces
A codimension-1 Chern-Simons interface in vacuum Maxwell theory supports a gapless chiral surface photon with linear dispersion and frequency-independent refractive index set by the Chern-Simons coefficient.
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