Precision tests of parity violation over cosmological distances

Abstract

Recent measurements of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) B-mode polarization power spectrum by the BICEP2 and POLARBEAR experiments have demonstrated new precision tools for probing fundamental physics. Regardless of origin, the detection of sub-μK CMB polarization represents a technological tour de force. Yet more information may be latent in the CMB's polarization pattern. Because of its tensorial nature, CMB polarization may also reveal parity-violating physics via a detection of cosmic polarization rotation. Although current CMB polarimeters are sensitive enough to measure one degree-level polarization rotation with > 5σ statistical significance, they lack the ability to differentiate this effect from a systematic instrumental polarization rotation. Here, we motivate the search for cosmic polarization rotation from current CMB data as well as independent radio galaxy and quasar polarization measurements. We argue that an improvement in calibration accuracy would allow the unambiguous measurement of parity- and Lorentz-violating effects. We describe the CalSat space-based polarization calibrator that will provide stringent control of systematic polarization angle calibration uncertainties to 0.05° - an order of magnitude improvement over current CMB polarization calibrators. CalSat-based calibration could be used with current CMB polarimeters searching for B-mode polarization, effectively turning them into probes of cosmic parity violation, 'for free' - i.e. without the need to build dedicated instruments.