The Corkscrew Effect
Astrophysics
2009-10-30 v2 High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
Abstract
We discuss a new mechanism which could cause a rotation of polarization of electromagnetic waves due to magnetic fields on cosmological scales. The effect is due to the geometrical phase of Pancharatnam and Berry, and causes a corkscrew twisting of the plane of polarization. The new effect represents an additional tool that allows possible intergalactic and cosmological magnetic fields to be studied using radio propagation.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.astro-ph/9707326,
title = {The Corkscrew Effect},
author = {John P. Ralston and Pankaj Jain and Borge Nodland},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/9707326},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
4 pages, ReVTeX, 1 GIF figure. Submitted to Physical Review Letters. For more information, please see http://www.cc.rochester.edu/college/rtc/Borge/aniso.html