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New Extraction of the Cosmic Birefringence from the Planck 2018 Polarization Data

Yuto Minami and Eiichiro Komatsu
Phys. Rev. Lett. 125, 221301 – Published 23 November 2020
Physics logo See synopsis: Hints of Cosmic Birefringence?

Abstract

We search for evidence of parity-violating physics in the Planck 2018 polarization data and report on a new measurement of the cosmic birefringence angle β. The previous measurements are limited by the systematic uncertainty in the absolute polarization angles of the Planck detectors. We mitigate this systematic uncertainty completely by simultaneously determining β and the angle miscalibration using the observed cross-correlation of the E- and B-mode polarization of the cosmic microwave background and the Galactic foreground emission. We show that the systematic errors are effectively mitigated and achieve a factor-of-2 smaller uncertainty than the previous measurement, finding β=0.35±0.14deg (68% C.L.), which excludes β=0 at 99.2% C.L. This corresponds to the statistical significance of 2.4σ.

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  • Received 9 August 2020
  • Revised 29 September 2020
  • Accepted 19 October 2020

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.125.221301

© 2020 American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Gravitation, Cosmology & Astrophysics

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Hints of Cosmic Birefringence?

Published 23 November 2020

A new analysis of the cosmic microwave background shows that its polarization may be rotated by exotic effects indicating beyond-standard-model physics.

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Authors & Affiliations

Yuto Minami*

  • High Energy Accelerator Research Organization, 1-1 Oho, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-0801, Japan

Eiichiro Komatsu

  • Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics, Karl-Schwarzschild-Straße 1, D-85748 Garching, Germany and Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (Kavli IPMU, WPI), Todai Institutes for Advanced Study, The University of Tokyo, Kashiwa 277-8583, Japan

  • *yminami@post.kek.jp
  • komatsu@mpa-garching.mpg.de

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Issue

Vol. 125, Iss. 22 — 27 November 2020

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