Is the Cosmic Microwave Background Circularly Polarized?

Details Is the Cosmic Microwave Background Circularly Polarized? Is the Cosmic Microwave Background Circularly Polarized?

2002-05-15

arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0205214v1

Phys.Lett. B554 (2003) 1-6

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

4 pages, 1 figure; Phys. Rev. Lett. submitted

Scientific paper

10.1016/S0370-2693(02)03291-4

The primordial anisotropies of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) are linearly polarized via Compton-scattering. The Faraday conversion process during the propagation of polarized CMB photons through regions of the large-scale structure containing magnetized relativistic plasma, such as galaxy clusters, will lead to a circularly polarized contribution. Though the resulting Stokes-V parameter is of order 10^-9 at frequencies of 10 GHz, the contribution can potentially reach the total Stokes-U at low frequencies due to the cubic dependence on the wavelength. In future, the detection of circular polarization of CMB can be used as a potential probe of the physical properties associated with relativistic particle populations in large-scale structures.

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