New Probe of Cosmic Birefringence Using Galaxy Polarization and Shapes
We propose a novel statistical method to measure cosmic birefringence and demonstrate its power in probing parity violation due to axions. Exploiting an empirical correlation between the integrated radio polarization direction of a spiral galaxy and its apparent shape, we devise an unbiased minimum-variance estimator for the rotation angle, which should achieve an uncertainty of 5°-15° per galaxy. Large galaxy samples from the forthcoming SKA continuum surveys, together with optical shape catalogs, promise a comparable or even lower noise power spectrum for the rotation angle than in the CMB Stage-IV (CMB-S4) experiment, with different systematics.
Authors
- Lingyuan Ji (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3947-7362)
- Liang Dai (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2091-8946)
- Simone Ferraro (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4992-7854)
- Weichen Winston Yin (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5692-7671)
- Junwu Huang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6007-7315)
Institutions
- Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (US)
- Perimeter Institute (CA)
- University of California System (US)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Physical Review Letters
- Published
- 2025-04-22
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.134.161001
- Citations
- 8
- Primary Topic
- Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 14.96
Funders
- U.S. Department of Energy
- Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
- Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada
- Ontario Ministry of Economic Development and Innovation
- Institut Périmètre de physique théorique
- Office of Science
- High Energy Physics
- Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory