We show that the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) polarization data gathered by the BOOMERanG 2003 flight and WMAP provide an opportunity to investigate in-vacuo birefringence, of a type expected in some quantum pictures of space-time, with a sensitivity that extends even beyond the desired Planck-scale energy. In order to render this constraint more transparent we rely on a well studied phenomenological model of quantum-gravity-induced birefringence, in which one easily establishes that effects introduced at the Planck scale would amount to values of a dimensionless parameter, denoted by., with respect to the Planck energy which are roughly of order 1. By combining BOOMERanG and WMAP data we estimate xi similar or equal to -0.110 +/- 0.075 at the 68% c.l. Moreover, we forecast on the sensitivity to. achievable by future CMB polarization experiments (PLANCK, Spider, EPIC), which, in the absence of systematics, will be at the 1-sigma confidence of 8.5 x 10(-4) (PLANCK), 6.1 x 10(-3) (Spider), and 1.0 x 10(-5) (EPIC) respectively. The cosmic variance-limited sensitivity from CMB is 6.1 x 10(-6).

A constraint on Planck-scale modifications to electrodynamics with CMB polarization data

Pagano, Luca;
2009

Abstract

We show that the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) polarization data gathered by the BOOMERanG 2003 flight and WMAP provide an opportunity to investigate in-vacuo birefringence, of a type expected in some quantum pictures of space-time, with a sensitivity that extends even beyond the desired Planck-scale energy. In order to render this constraint more transparent we rely on a well studied phenomenological model of quantum-gravity-induced birefringence, in which one easily establishes that effects introduced at the Planck scale would amount to values of a dimensionless parameter, denoted by., with respect to the Planck energy which are roughly of order 1. By combining BOOMERanG and WMAP data we estimate xi similar or equal to -0.110 +/- 0.075 at the 68% c.l. Moreover, we forecast on the sensitivity to. achievable by future CMB polarization experiments (PLANCK, Spider, EPIC), which, in the absence of systematics, will be at the 1-sigma confidence of 8.5 x 10(-4) (PLANCK), 6.1 x 10(-3) (Spider), and 1.0 x 10(-5) (EPIC) respectively. The cosmic variance-limited sensitivity from CMB is 6.1 x 10(-6).
2009
Gubitosi, Giulia; Pagano, Luca; Amelino-Camelia, Giovanni; Melchiorri, Alessandro; Cooray, Asantha
File in questo prodotto:
Non ci sono file associati a questo prodotto.

I documenti in SFERA sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.

Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11392/2397451
 Attenzione

Attenzione! I dati visualizzati non sono stati sottoposti a validazione da parte dell'ateneo

Citazioni
  • ???jsp.display-item.citation.pmc??? ND
  • Scopus 64
  • ???jsp.display-item.citation.isi??? 59
social impact