English

Neutrino-Induced Polarization Rotation in Active Galactic Nuclei Plasmas

High Energy Physics - Phenomenology 2026-01-23 v1 High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena

Abstract

We study parity-violating birefringence induced by an asymmetric neutrino background in plasmas associated with active galactic nuclei (AGN). We derive a directionality factor arising from the relative bulk motion between the neutrino medium and plasma, and show that it can produce an anomalous frequency dependence of the polarization-rotation angle, distinct from the ω2\omega^{-2} scaling of Faraday rotation. This anomalous scaling can occur either at the resonance plasma frequency condition ωωp\omega \simeq \omega_p, or when Eν0mνω/ωpE_\nu^{0}\simeq m_\nu \omega/\omega_p lies within the range of the neutrino energy spectrum. We estimate the effect for three scenarios: jets propagating through the cosmic neutrino background (Cν\nuB), jets with an internal flux of high-energy neutrinos, and accretion-disk plasma permeated by the Cν\nuB. Of the three scenarios, the latter gives the largest rotation angle ϕd1035rad\phi_{\rm d} \sim 10^{-35}\,\mathrm{rad}, at X-ray frequencies. Although the predicted rotation angles are below current polarimetric sensitivity, the identified spectral signatures provide a theoretical framework for probing neutrino asymmetries and AGN plasma properties independent of magnetic field models.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2601.15910,
  title  = {Neutrino-Induced Polarization Rotation in Active Galactic Nuclei Plasmas},
  author = {H. B. Câmara and A. Smetana and A. Tursunov},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2601.15910},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

8 LaTeX pages; 1 figure