English

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 U(1)U(1) 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 Δϑ103\Delta\vartheta \sim 10^{-3} 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.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2602.20248,
  title  = {Cloaking Cosmic Light},
  author = {Nemanja Kaloper},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2602.20248},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

10 pages. LaTeX

R2 v1 2026-07-01T10:48:36.208Z