English

Axion-like particles and circular polarisation of active galactic nuclei

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics 2009-11-04 v1 High Energy Physics - Phenomenology

Abstract

The measurements of the linear polarisation of visible light from quasars give strong evidence for large-scale coherent orientations of their polarisation vectors in some regions of the sky. We show that these observations can be explained by the mixing of the photons with very light pseudoscalar (axion-like) particles in extragalactic magnetic fields during their propagation. We present a new treatment in terms of wave packets and discuss the circular polarisation.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0911.0585,
  title  = {Axion-like particles and circular polarisation of active galactic nuclei},
  author = {A. Payez and J. R. Cudell and D. Hutsemékers},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0911.0585},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

Contributed to the "5th Patras Workshop on Axions, WIMPs and WISPs", Durham 13-17 July 2009