Related papers: Measures of non-Gaussianity in axion-string-induce…
Cosmic birefringence is the in-vacuo rotation of the linear polarization plane experienced by photons of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation when theoretically well-motivated parity-violating extensions of Maxwell…
The polarization of Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) photons is rotated as they pass through (ultralight-) axion string loops. Studying this birefringence can reveal valuable information about the axion-photon coupling and the structure of…
Axion-like particles may form a network of cosmic strings in the Universe today that can rotate the plane of polarization of cosmic microwave background (CMB) photons. Future CMB observations with improved sensitivity might detect this…
We demonstrate that the Peccei-Quinn-electromagnetic anomaly coefficient $\mathcal A$ can be directly measured from axion string-induced cosmic birefringence by applying scattering transform to the anisotropic polarization rotation of the…
Axion-like particles (ALPs) can form a network of cosmic strings and domain walls that survives after recombination and leads to anisotropic birefringence of the cosmic microwave background (CMB). In addition to studying cosmic strings, we…
We briefly review certain aspects of cosmic microwave background anisotropies as generated in passive and active models of structure formation. We then focus on cosmic strings based models and discuss their status in the light of current…
Motivated by the fact that cosmological perturbations of inflationary quantum origin were born Gaussian, the search for non-Gaussianities in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropies is considered as the privileged probe of…
When coupled to electromagnetism via a Chern-Simons interaction, axion-like particles (ALP) produce a rotation of the plane of linear polarization of photons known as cosmic birefringence. Recent measurements of cosmic birefringence…
It was known that isocurvature perturbation of a nearly massless cosmological axion field can lead to rotation of $E$-mode polarization into $B$-mode polarization in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) by the presence of a parity…
We study axion strings of hyperlight axions coupled to photons. Hyperlight axions -- axions lighter than Hubble at recombination -- are a generic prediction of the string axiverse. These axions strings produce a distinct quantized…
The recently reported non-zero isotropic birefringence angle in Planck 2018 polarization data provides a tantalizing hint for new physics of axions. In this paper, we explain this by a string theory motivated axion with a monodromy…
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…
Recently, results from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) DR6 have shown a preference for isotropic cosmic birefringence, consistent with previous analyses based on Planck and WMAP data. Separately, the Dark Energy Spectroscopic…
Axion-like particles are dark matter candidates motivated by the Peccei-Quinn mechanism and also occur in effective field theories where their masses and photon couplings are independent. We estimate the dispersion of circularly polarized…
Parity-violating extensions of Maxwell electromagnetism induce a rotation of the linear polarization plane of photons during propagation. This effect, known as cosmic birefringence, impacts on the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB)…
We explore the cosmic birefringence signal produced by an ultralight axion field with a small CP-violating coupling to bulk SM matter in addition to the usual CP-preserving photon coupling. The change in the vacuum expectation value of the…
Gaussian cosmic microwave background skies are fully specified by the power spectrum. The conventional method of characterizing non-Gaussian skies is to evaluate higher order moments, the n-point functions and their Fourier transforms. We…
We present an improved search for axion-like polarization oscillations in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) with observations from the Keck Array. An all-sky, temporally sinusoidal rotation of CMB polarization, equivalent to a…
The search for cosmic polarization rotation or birefringence in the CMB is well-motivated because it can provide powerful constraints on parity-violating new physics, such as axion-like particles. In this paper we point out that since the…
Cosmic birefringence -- the rotation of the polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) photons as they travel to the Earth -- is a smoking gun for axion-like particles (ALPs) that interact with the photon. It has recently been…