Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics – High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Scientific paper
2010-01-28
JCAP05(2010)010
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Final version (21 pages, 8 eps figures). Matches the version published on JCAP. Added a Section on the effects of cosmic expan
Scientific paper
Various satellite-borne missions are being planned whose goal is to measure the polarization of a large number of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). We show that the polarization pattern predicted by current models of GRB emission can be drastically modified by the existence of very light axion-like particles (ALPs), which are present in many extensions of the Standard Model of particle physics. Basically, the propagation of photons emitted by a GRB through cosmic magnetic fields with a domain-like structure induces photon-ALP mixing, which is expected to produce a strong modification of the original photon polarization. Because of the random orientation of the magnetic field in each domain, this effect strongly depends on the orientation of the photon line of sight. As a consequence, photon-ALP conversion considerably broadens the original polarization distribution. Searching for such a peculiar feature through future high-statistics polarimetric measurements is therefore a new opportunity to discover very light ALPs.
Bassan Nicola
Mirizzi Alessandro
Roncadelli Marco
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