Computing Microwave Background Polarization Power Spectra from Cosmic Birefringence [CEA]

http://arxiv.org/abs/2111.14199


We present a new publicly available code, $\texttt{class_rot}$, which modifies $\texttt{class}$ to enable fast non-perturbative calculation of cosmic microwave background polarization power spectra due to both isotropic and anisotropic polarization rotation from cosmic birefringence. Cosmic birefringence can arise from new parity-violating physics such as axion dark matter with a Chern-Simons coupling to photons or Faraday rotation due to a primordial magnetic field. Constraints on these effects can be obtained by comparing measurements to precise numerical calculations of the polarization power spectra. We describe the implementation of $\texttt{class_rot}$ in terms of both mathematical formalism and coding architecture. We also provide usage examples and demonstrate the accuracy of the code by comparing with simulations.

Read this paper on arXiv…

H. Cai and Y. Guan
Tue, 30 Nov 21
51/105

Comments: 6 pages, 2 figures, submitted to PRD