English

Anomalous CMB polarization and gravitational chirality

Astrophysics 2008-11-26 v1 General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology

Abstract

We consider the possibility that gravity breaks parity, with left and right handed gravitons coupling to matter with a different Newton's constant and show that this would affect their zero-point vacuum fluctuations during inflation. Should there be a cosmic background of gravity waves, the effect would translate into anomalous CMB polarization. Non-vanishing TB (and EB) polarization components emerge, revealing interesting experimental targets. Indeed if reasonable chirality is present a TB measurement would provide the easiest way to detect a gravitational wave background. We speculate on the theoretical implications of such an observation.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0806.3082,
  title  = {Anomalous CMB polarization and gravitational chirality},
  author = {Carlo R. Contaldi and Joao Magueijo and Lee Smolin},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0806.3082},
  year   = {2008}
}

Comments

5 pages, 1 figure

R2 v1 2026-06-21T10:52:14.885Z