Published April 15, 2020
| Published + Submitted
Journal Article
Open
Atacama Cosmology Telescope: Constraints on cosmic birefringence
- Creators
- Namikawa, Toshiya
- Guan, Yilun
- Darwish, Omar
- Sherwin, Blake D.
- Aiola, Simone
- Battaglia, Nicholas
- Beall, James A.
- Becker, Daniel T.
- Bond, J. Richard
- Calabrese, Erminia
- Chesmore, Grace E.
- Choi, Steve K.
- Devlin, Mark J.
- Dunkley, Joanna
- Dünner, Rolando
- Fox, Anna E.
- Gallardo, Patricio A.
- Gluscevic, Vera
- Han, Dongwon
- Hasselfield, Matthew
- Hilton, Gene C.
- Hincks, Adam D.
- Hložek, Renée
- Hubmayr, Johannes
- Huffenberger, Kevin
- Hughes, John P.
- Koopman, Brian J.
- Kosowsky, Arthur
- Louis, Thibaut
- Lungu, Marius
- MacInnis, Amanda
- Madhavacheril, Mathew S.
- Mallaby-Kay, Maya
- Maurin, Loïc
- McMahon, Jeffrey
- Moodley, Kavilan
- Naess, Sigurd
- Nati, Federico
- Newburgh, Laura B.
- Nibarger, John P.
- Niemack, Michael D.
- Page, Lyman A.
- Qu, Frank J.
- Robertson, Naomi
- Schillaci, Alessandro
- Sehgal, Neelima
- Sifón, Cristóbal
- Simon, Sara M.
- Spergel, David N.
- Staggs, Suzanne T.
- Storer, Emilie R.
- van Engelen, Alexander
- van Lanen, Jeff
- Wollack, Edward J.
Abstract
We present new constraints on anisotropic birefringence of the cosmic microwave background polarization using two seasons of data from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope covering 456 square degrees of sky. The birefringence power spectrum, measured using a curved-sky quadratic estimator, is consistent with zero. Our results provide the tightest current constraint on birefringence over a range of angular scales between 5 arc minutes and 9°. We improve previous upper limits on the amplitude of a scale-invariant birefringence power spectrum by a factor of between 2 and 3. Assuming a nearly massless axion field during inflation, our result is equivalent to a 2σ upper limit on the Chern-Simons coupling constant between axions and photons of g_(αγ) < 4.0×10⁻²/H_I, where HI is the inflationary Hubble scale.
Additional Information
© 2020 American Physical Society. Received 1 February 2020; accepted 2 April 2020; published 17 April 2020. T. N. thanks Ryo Nagata and Levon Pogosian for helpful discussions. Some of the results in this paper have been derived using a dust simulation generated by Ref. [54] and public software of the healpy [81], HEALPix [82], and CAMB [83]. This work was supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation through Grants No. AST-1440226, No. AST0965625 and No. AST-0408698 for the ACT project, as well as Grants No. PHY-1214379 and No. PHY-0855887. Funding was also provided by Princeton University, the University of Pennsylvania, and a Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) grant to UBC. ACT operates in the Parque Astronomico Atacama in northern Chile under the auspices of the Comision Nacional de Investigacion Cientfica y Tecnologica de Chile (CONICYT). Computations were performed on the GPC and Niagara supercomputers at the SciNet HPC Consortium. SciNet is funded by the CFI under the auspices of Compute Canada, the Government of Ontario, the Ontario Research Fund Research Excellence, and the University of Toronto. The development of multichroic detectors and lenses was supported by NASA Grants No. NNX13AE56G and No. NNX14AB58G. Colleagues at AstroNorte and RadioSky provide logistical support and keep operations in Chile running smoothly. We also thank the Mishrahi Fund and the Wilkinson Fund for their generous support of the project. T. N., O. D., and B. D. S. acknowledge support from an Isaac Newton Trust Early Career Grant and from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Unions Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (Grant Agreement No. 851274). B. D. S. further acknowledges support from an STFC Ernest Rutherford Fellowship. D. H., A. M., and N. S. acknowledge support from NSF Grant No. 1513618. J. D. and E. S. acknowledge support from NSF Grant No. 1814971. E. C. is supported by an STFC Ernest Rutherford Fellowship No. ST/M004856/2 and STFC Consolidated Grant No. ST/S00033X/1. L. M. received funding from CONICYT FONDECYT Grant No. 3170846. K. M. acknowledges support from the National Research Foundation of South Africa.Attached Files
Published - PhysRevD.101.083527.pdf
Submitted - 2001.10465.pdf
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Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 102639
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20200417-143354054
- NSF
- AST-1440226
- NSF
- AST-0965625
- NSF
- AST-0408698
- NSF
- PHY-1214379
- NSF
- PHY-0855887
- Princeton University
- University of Pennsylvania
- Canada Foundation for Innovation
- Comisión Nacional de Investigación Científica y Tecnológica (CONICYT)
- Compute Canada
- Ontario Research Fund Research Excellence
- University of Toronto
- NASA
- NNX13AE56G
- NASA
- NNX14AB58G
- Mishrahi Fund
- Wilkinson Fund
- Isaac Newton Trust
- European Research Council (ERC)
- 851274
- NSF
- AST-1513618
- NSF
- AST-1814971
- Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC)
- ST/M004856/2
- Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC)
- ST/S00033X/1
- Fondo Nacional de Desarrollo Científico y Tecnológico (FONDECYT)
- 3170846
- National Research Foundation (South Africa)
- Created
-
2020-04-17Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2021-11-16Created from EPrint's last_modified field