Forecasts of constraining isotropic cosmic birefringence on AliCPT-1

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Dou, Jiazheng, Zhao, Wen
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Dou, Jiazheng
Zhao, Wen
author_facet Dou, Jiazheng
Zhao, Wen
contents Cosmic birefringence (CB) is a promising probe of parity-violating physics beyond the Standard Model, characterized by the rotation of the linear polarization plane of cosmic microwave background (CMB) photons. This effect, quantified by the birefringence angle $β$, generates non-zero $EB$ and $TB$ correlations that are otherwise absent in standard cosmology. However, instrumental miscalibration angles $α$ can mimic this signal, necessitating a joint estimation approach. In this work, we forecast the sensitivity of the AliCPT experiment, combined with Planck HFI data, on constraining the isotropic CB angle using a semi-analytical maximum-likelihood method. We simulate observations under various foreground complexities, rotation angles, and scanning strategies, and demonstrate that AliCPT can achieve an uncertainty of $σ(β)=0.09^\circ$ with one-year data, which will improve to $0.026^\circ$ after four years' observations. We also find that neglecting or mismodeling the foreground $EB$ correlation will introduce significant biases, which can be alleviated under a clean but small sky patch.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2510_21221
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Forecasts of constraining isotropic cosmic birefringence on AliCPT-1
Dou, Jiazheng
Zhao, Wen
Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
Cosmic birefringence (CB) is a promising probe of parity-violating physics beyond the Standard Model, characterized by the rotation of the linear polarization plane of cosmic microwave background (CMB) photons. This effect, quantified by the birefringence angle $β$, generates non-zero $EB$ and $TB$ correlations that are otherwise absent in standard cosmology. However, instrumental miscalibration angles $α$ can mimic this signal, necessitating a joint estimation approach. In this work, we forecast the sensitivity of the AliCPT experiment, combined with Planck HFI data, on constraining the isotropic CB angle using a semi-analytical maximum-likelihood method. We simulate observations under various foreground complexities, rotation angles, and scanning strategies, and demonstrate that AliCPT can achieve an uncertainty of $σ(β)=0.09^\circ$ with one-year data, which will improve to $0.026^\circ$ after four years' observations. We also find that neglecting or mismodeling the foreground $EB$ correlation will introduce significant biases, which can be alleviated under a clean but small sky patch.
title Forecasts of constraining isotropic cosmic birefringence on AliCPT-1
topic Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.21221