Related papers: Computing Microwave Background Polarization Power …
We point out that the rotation angle $\beta$ of cosmic birefringence, which is a recently reported parity-violating signal in the cosmic microwave background (CMB), has a phase ambiguity of $n\pi \,(n\in\mathbb{Z})$. This ambiguity has a…
We evaluate the large scale polarization of the cosmic microwave background induced, via Thomson scattering prior to decoupling, by nearly scale-invariant spectra of scalar and tensor metric perturbations, such as those predicted by most…
We present new constraints on anisotropic birefringence of the cosmic microwave background polarization using two seasons of data from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope covering $456$ square degrees of sky. The birefringence power spectrum,…
We provide an update on the work of di Serego Alighieri (2015), focusing on recent developments regarding constraints on Cosmic Polarization Rotation (CPR), also known as Cosmic Birefringence (CB), derived from Cosmic Microwave Background…
These lectures introduce some of the basic theory of cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarization with the primary aim of developing the theory of CMB polarization from inflationary gravitational waves, as well as some of the related…
The anisotropies of the cosmic microwave background are a gold mine for cosmology and fundamental physics. ESA's Planck satellite should soon extract all information from the temperature vein but will be limited concerning the measurement…
The Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation (CMB) is an invaluable probe of the conditions of the early universe. Recent measurements of its spatial anisotropy have allowed accurate determinations of several fundamental cosmological…
We review current observational constraints on the polarization of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB), with a particular emphasis on detecting the signature of primordial gravitational waves. We present an analytic solution to the…
In this paper, we focus our attention on the following question: How well can we recover the power spectrum of the cosmic microwave background from the maps of a given experiment?. Each experiment is described by a a pixelization scale, a…
Cosmic birefringence (CB) is the rotation of the photons' linear polarisation plane during propagation. Such an effect is a tracer of parity-violating extensions of standard electromagnetism and would probe the existence of a new…
Vacuum birefringence is a signature of Lorentz-symmetry violation. Here we report on a recent search for birefringence in the cosmic microwave background. Polarization data is used to place constraints on certain forms of Lorentz violation.
Mechanisms have been proposed that might rotate the linear polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) as it propagates from the surface of last scatter. In the simplest scenario, the rotation will be uniform across the sky, but…
We present new constraints on the frequency dependence of the cosmic birefringence angle from the Planck data release 4 polarization maps. An axion field coupled to electromagnetism predicts a nearly frequency-independent birefringence…
The recent high-quality measurements of the Cosmic Microwave Background anisotropies have presented cosmologists with the possibility of studying the large scale properties of our universe with unprecedented precision. Here I review the…
With polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) now detected, and confirmed by several independent experiments, the next goal is to characterise accurately its statistical properties. In these lecture notes we review the physical…
The B-mode polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) provides a unique window into tensor perturbations from inflationary gravitational waves. Survey effects complicate the estimation and description of the power spectrum on the…
Low energy string theory predicts the existence of an axion field which can lead to cosmic birefringence. We solve the electromagnetic wave equations in the presence of such an axion and a dilaton field in order to determine their effect on…
We combine detections of anisotropy in the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation with observations of inhomogeneity in the large-scale distribution of galaxies to test the predictions of models of cosmological structure formation. This…
We report a systematic rotation of the plane of polarization of electromagnetic radiation propagating over cosmological distances. The effect is extracted independently from Faraday rotation, and found to be correlated with the angular…
We search for signatures of Lorentz and $CPT$ violations in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature and polarization anisotropies by using the WMAP and the 2003 flight of BOOMERANG (B03) data. We note that if the Lorentz and $CPT$…