Parity violation constraints using cosmic microwave background polarization spectra from 2006 and 2007 observations by the QUaD polarimeter.
We constrain parity-violating interactions to the surface of last scattering using spectra from the QUaD experiment's second and third seasons of observations by searching for a possible systematic rotation of the polarization directions of cosmic microwave background photons. We measure the rotation angle due to such a possible "cosmological birefringence" to be 0.55 degrees +/-0.82 degrees (random) +/-0.5 degrees (systematic) using QUaD's 100 and 150 GHz temperature-curl and gradient-curl spectra over the spectra over the multipole range 200<l<2000, consistent with null, and constrain Lorentz-violating interactions to <2 x 10;{-43} GeV (68% confidence limit). This is the best constraint to date on electrodynamic parity violation on cosmological scales.
Wu
E Y S
EY
Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology and Department of Physics, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA. e2wu@stanford.edu
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