Cosmological birefringence constraints from CMB and astrophysical polarization data

TL;DR

This paper constrains models of cosmological birefringence by analyzing polarization data from CMB and various astrophysical sources across multiple wavelengths, considering energy and distance dependencies.

Contribution

It combines multi-wavelength polarization data to place new constraints on cosmological birefringence models, accounting for energy and distance effects.

Findings

Constraints on birefringence parameters across different models

No significant evidence for birefringence detected

Improved limits compared to previous studies

Abstract

Cosmological birefringence is a rotation of the polarization plane of photons coming from sources of astrophysical and cosmological origin. The rotation can also depend on the energy of the photons and not only on the distance of the source and on the cosmological evolution of the underlying theoretical model. In this work, we constrain few selected models for cosmological birefringence, combining CMB and astrophysical data at radio, optical, X and gamma wavelengths, taking into account the specific energy and distance dependences.