Cloaking Cosmic Light
Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
2026-02-27 v1 General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
High Energy Physics - Theory
Abstract
Light crossing dark domain walls that source a top form coupled to gauge Chern--Simons terms mixing visible and dark gauge fields generically converts into dark photons. The effect is entirely localized on the wall and requires no additional ingredients. The conversion rate is a sharp function of the photon frequency in the wall rest frame, vanishing above the ultraviolet cutoff of the top form sector. Partial cloaking may also induce a rotation of the polarization of transmitted light of order radians, modify the cosmic microwave background power spectrum, and violate Etherington's reciprocity relation at low frequencies. These effects can impact cosmological determinations of the Hubble rate.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2602.20248,
title = {Cloaking Cosmic Light},
author = {Nemanja Kaloper},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2602.20248},
year = {2026}
}
Comments
10 pages. LaTeX