Constraints on parity violation from ACTpol and forecasts for forthcoming CMB experiments

TL;DR

This paper uses ACTpol CMB polarization data to constrain cosmological birefringence, finding no significant parity violation and forecasting future experiments' improved sensitivity to this effect.

Contribution

It introduces specific D-estimators for birefringence and assesses their performance using realistic simulations, providing the first constraints from ACTpol data and forecasts for upcoming experiments.

Findings

Null result for birefringence angle: 0.29° ± 0.28° (stat.) ± 0.5° (syst.)

Forecasts show future experiments like COrE could constrain birefringence to 10 arcsec

COrE could improve constraints by a factor of 2-3 over other experiments

Abstract

We use the ACTpol published cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarization data to constrain cosmological birefringence, a tracer of parity violation beyond the standard model of particle physics. To this purpose, we employ all the polarized ACTpol spectra, including the cross-correlations between temperature anisotropy and B mode polarization (TB) and between E mode and B mode (EB), which are most sensitive to the effect. We build specific, so-called D-estimators for birefringence and assess their performances and error budgets by using realistic Monte Carlo simulations based on the experimental characteristics provided by the ACTpol collaboration. We determine the optimal multipole range for our analysis to be $250 < \ell < 3025$ over which we find a null result for the uniform birefringence angle $\alpha = 0.29^\circ \pm 0.28^\circ$ (stat.) $\pm 0.5^\circ$ (syst.), the latter uncertainty being the estimate published by the ACTpol team on their global systematic error budget. We show that this result holds consistently when other multipole ranges are considered. Finally, we forecast the capability of several forthcoming ground based, balloon and space borne CMB experiments to constrain the birefringence angle, showing, e.g., that the proposed post-Planck COrE satellite mission could in principle constrain $\alpha$ at a level of 10 arcsec, provided that all systematics are under control. Under the same circumstances, we find the COrE constraints to be at least 2 or 3 times better than what could ideally be achieved by the other experiments considered.