Cosmological Signature of New Parity-Violating Interactions

Abstract

Does Nature yield any manifestations of parity violation other than those observed in weak interactions? A map of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature and polarization will provide a new signature of P violation. We give two examples of new P violating interactions, which may have something to do with Planck-scale physics, inflation, and/or quintessence, that would give rise to such a signature. Although these effects would most likely elude detection by MAP and the Planck Surveyor, they may be detectable with a future dedicated CMB polarization experiment.

Figures (2)

• Figure 1: The dashed curve shows the $C_l^{TC}$ power spectrum induced by rotation of the polarization of an initially P symmetric CMB polarization pattern by $0.05^\circ$. The solid curve shows the $C_l^{TC}$ power spectrum produced by a GW background that consists of only right-handed GWs.
• Figure 2: The smallest $\epsilon$ for the (GW model) and $\Delta\alpha$ (for the polarization rotation model) detectable at the $1\sigma$ level with a one-year CMB temperature/polarization experiment with detector sensitivity $s$. For this calculation, a beamwidth of $0.1^{\circ}$ is assumed (although results for $\epsilon$ are roughly the same for a beamwidth as large as $0.5^\circ$).