Cosmological tests of Lorentz symmetries
Giulia Gubitosi
IPhT CEA-Saclay
Wed, Mar. 07th 2012, 14:15
Salle Claude Itzykson, Bât. 774, Orme des Merisiers
Lorentz symmetry violations are expected to emerge when spacetime is probed on very short distance scales, of the order of the Planck length $sim 10^{-35}$ m, and can produce anomalous light propagation. The kind of anomalies we are interested in would show up as energy-dependent birefringent behavior of light, which can possibly depend on the propagation direction if space isotropy is also violated. The strongest constraints on isotropic birefringence come from astrophysical observations, due to the high energy of photons involved, but astrophysical data are not powerful to constrain non-isotropic features, since they involve a limited number of point sources. The almost full-sky coverage of CMB data allows instead to perform accurate tests on non isotropic birefringence effects. We present the current constraints on isotropic birefringence and show that polarization data gathered by the PLANCK satellite will reach the sensitivity required to test spacetime symmetries up to the Planck scale. We also propose a method to perform accurate tests on non-isotropic birefringence effects.
Contact : ccaprini

 

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