Related papers: Cosmic Background Radiation Polarization Experimen…
Microwave background polarization, though presently undetected, is a fundamental prediction of any viable cosmological model. These lectures review the theoretical description of polarization, its physical interpretation, and potentially…
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…
Possible instrumental set--ups for the measurement of CMB polarization are reviewed in this article. We discuss existing and planned instruments, putting special emphasis on observational, instrumental, and data processing issues for the…
In this lecture, after a synthetic review of measurements of CMB temperature anisotropies and of their cosmological implications, the theoretical background of CMB polarization is summarized and the concepts of the main experiments that are…
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…
Cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropy is our richest source of cosmological information; the standard cosmological model was largely established thanks to study of the temperature anisotropies. By the end of the decade, the Planck…
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…
The study of cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarization is still in a pioneering stage, but promises to bring a huge advancement in cosmology in the near future, just as high-accuracy observations of the anisotropies in the total…
The prospects for accomplishing x-ray polarization measurements of astronomical sources have grown in recent years, after a hiatus of more than 37 years. Unfortunately, accompanying this long hiatus has been some confusion over the…
Astrophysical polarization measurements provide some of the strongest constraints on the photon sector of the non-minimal Standard-Model Extension. This paper reviews some recent results obtained by combining optical linear and circular…
Science opportunities and recommendations concerning optical/infrared polarimetry for the upcoming decade in the field of cosmology. Community-based White Paper to Astro2010 in response to the call for such papers.
We discuss new techniques and ideas in mm-wave instrumentation that can be used in CMB (Cosmic Microwave background) polarization experiments. Novel techniques in antenna receiver, beam combining and detector systems have resulted in…
The circular polarization of gravitational waves is a powerful observable to test parity violation in gravity and to distinguish between the primordial or the astrophysical origin of the stochastic background. This property comes from the…
Since the first detection by the DASI experiment in 2002, measurements of the polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) have grown into an important role in testing our understanding of conditions in the early universe and…
The study of anomalous electromagnetic emission in the sky is the basis of indirect searches for dark matter. It is also a powerful tool to constrain the radiative decay of active neutrinos. Until now, quantitative analyses have focused on…
Over the last decade, cosmological observations have attained a level of precision which allows for detailed comparison with theoretical predictions. In this paper, we briefly review some studies of the current and prospected constraints…
Polarimetry remains a largely unexploited technique in observational X-ray astronomy which could provide insight in the study of the strong gravity and magnetic fields at the core of the Constellation-X observational program. Adding a…
Cosmological measurements of the radiation density in the early universe can be used as a sensitive probe of physics beyond the standard model. Observations of primordial light element abundances have long been used to place non-trivial…
Measurements of the polarization angle and orientation of cosmological radio sources may be used to search for unusual effects in the propagation of light through the universe. Recently, Nodland and Ralston (astro-ph/9704196) have claimed…
We summarize the physical mechanism by which the Cosmic Microwave Background acquires a small degree of polarization. We discuss the imprint left by gravitational waves and the use of polarization as a test of the inflationary paradigm. We…