Improved Constraints on Cosmic Birefringence from the WMAP and Planck Cosmic Microwave Background Polarization Data

2022/05/27 by Johannes R. Eskilt, Eiichiro Komatsu · 1 voice · 17 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena #Radio Astronomy Observations and Technology #astro-ph.CO

paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevd.106.063503

9 pages, 5 figures, 1 table. The code to reproduce the results of this paper is available at https://github.com/LilleJohs/Cosmic_Birefringence. Accepted for publication in Physical Review D

openalex publication_date 2022/09/07 · arxiv created 2022/09/12 · openalex created_date 2022/09/15 · arxiv updated 2022/09/21 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01

Abstract

The observed pattern of linear polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) photons is a sensitive probe of physics violating parity symmetry under inversion of spatial coordinates. A new parity-violating interaction might have rotated the plane of linear polarization by an angle β as the CMB photons have been traveling for more than 13 billion years. This effect is known as "cosmic birefringence." In this paper, we present new measurements of cosmic birefringence from a joint analysis of polarization data from two space missions, Planck and WMAP. This dataset covers a wide range of frequencies from 23 to 353 GHz. We measure β= 0.342^{∘ +0.094^∘}_\phantom∘ -0.091^∘ (68% C.L.) for nearly full-sky data, which excludes β=0 at 99.987% C.L. This corresponds to the statistical significance of 3.6σ. There is no evidence for frequency dependence of β. We find a similar result, albeit with a larger uncertainty, when removing the Galactic plane from the analysis.

Citations

• NINE-YEAR WILKINSON MICROWAVE ANISOTROPY PROBE ( WMAP ) OBSERVATIONS: FINAL MAPS AND RESULTS
• Quintessence and the Rest of the World: Suppressing Long-Range Interactions
• CMB-S4 Science Case, Reference Design, and Project Plan
• BICEP / Keck XIII: Improved Constraints on Primordial Gravitational Waves using Planck, WMAP, and BICEP/Keck Observations through the 2018 Observing Season
• Cosmic Birefringence from Planck Public Release 4
• Planck 2018 results: VI. Cosmological parameters

Cited by

• Forecasts of constraining isotropic cosmic birefringence on AliCPT-1
• Nonlinear Evolution of the Matter Trispectrum with Primordial Parity Violation
• Search for Quintessence-Like Pseudoscalar Dark Energy Effects on ⁵⁶Fe Nuclear Transition Energies in Supernova 1991T
• Sign-Flipping Axion Potentials via Kapitza-Type Modulation by Heavy Axions
• Testing the Heterotic String with the Axion-Photon Coupling
• Scalar induced gravitational waves in PV symmetric teleparallel gravity with non-minimally coupled boundary term
• Planck constraints on the scale dependence of isotropic cosmic birefringence
• Field-level constraints on cosmic birefringence from hybrid ILC maps combining E- and B-mode channels
• Polarization-shape alignment of IllustrisTNG star-forming galaxies
• Implications for dark energy of cosmic transparency in light of DESI data
• Implications of DESI for Dark Matter & Cosmic Birefringence
• About electroweak domain walls in Majoron models
• First astrometric constraints on parity-violation in the gravitational wave background
• Parity-violating scalar trispectrum from helical primordial magnetic fields
• Testing Quintessence Axion Dark Energy with Recent Cosmological Results
• Constraints on Anisotropic Cosmic Birefringence from CMB B-mode Polarization
• 3-form dark energy and cosmic birefringence

Discussions

• Although #ACT DR6s headline is that LCDM is still king, they do find a 2.5 sigma of an unexplained polarization angle (aka cosmic birefringence)! I am amazed that people are not more excited by this! [bsky, 6 points, 1 comments]

Related

• Cosmic Birefringence from Planck Public Release 4
• Cosmic Birefringence from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope Data Release 6
• Constraints on Anisotropic Cosmic Birefringence from CMB B-mode Polarization
• Planck constraints on Cosmic Birefringence and its cross-correlation with the CMB
• Planck PR4 (NPIPE) map-space cosmic birefringence