6–31 juil. 2026
Galileo Galilei Institute
Fuseau horaire Europe/Paris

Cosmic Birefringence and Axion Dark Energy

10 juil. 2026, 16:30
10m
Galileo Galilei Institute

Galileo Galilei Institute

Talk at the school (week 1) Student Talks

Orateur

Lena Stefanie Scheuchl (Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics)

Description

Recent analyses of Planck polarization data have reported a hint of cosmic birefringence at the level of a $~3.6\sigma$ deviation from the parity-conserving standard cosmological model. At the same time, tensions between CMB data and large-scale structure observations can be alleviated by replacing the cosmological constant with dynamical dark energy. Ultralight axion-like particles can explain both signals by rotating the polarization plane of CMB photons and contributing to the background evolution via a time-varying equation of state.

In this talk, I will present a modified version of the Einstein-Boltzmann solver CLASS that self-consistently calculates parity-odd CMB power spectra for an axion dark energy model with a quadratic potential. This will, for the first time, allow a unified treatment that tracks the late-time evolution of the pseudo-scalar field and simultaneously predicts its impact on cosmological observables. I will show how different axion masses produce distinctive features in the CMB polarization power spectra.

Auteur

Lena Stefanie Scheuchl (Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics)

Documents de présentation

Aucun document.