Probing cosmic birefringence with polarized Sunyaev-Zel?dovich

If the physics behind dark energy and/or dark matter violates the parity symmetry assumed in the standard cosmological paradigm, the linear polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) photons can rotate due to their coupling to the dark sector. Recent 3 sigma hints of this cosmic birefringence in the EB spectrum of the CMB polarization motivates us to pursue new directions to independently validate and characterize the signal. Here, we explore the prospects to probe cosmic birefringence from small-scale fluctuations in the CMB using polarized Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (pSZ) tomography. We find that pSZ can be used to infer the redshift dependence of cosmic birefringence and also help calibrate the instrumental polarization orientation. To illustrate the prospects, we show that pSZ tomography may probe an axion-like dark energy model with masses m phi < 10-32 eV with O(0.1) degrees of rotation between reionization and recombination.

Automated summary

Research suggests that cosmic birefringence can be inferred from small-scale fluctuations in the CMB using polarized Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (pSZ) tomography, which can also help calibrate the instrumental polarization orientation. This can aid in detecting dark energy models.