Birefringence of electromagnetic waves in the relic neutrino gas

Abstract

We reconsider the problem of the birefringence of electromagnetic (EM) waves in a medium consisting of a plasma and a $\nu \bar{\nu }$-gas within the Standard Model of particle physics. The considered effect arises in such a medium due to the parity violation for the electroweak neutrino-electron interaction. Our recent calculations of the electroweak correction to the photon polarization operator in the electroweak plasma allow us to significantly improve some previous estimates of such effect in astrophysics. We estimate the rotary power for EM waves propagating in a non-relativistic plasma in the intergalactic space and interacting with the gas of relic neutrinos and antineutrinos there. We show that, in presence of a plasma, the EM wave birefringence effect in a $\nu \bar{\nu }$-gas exceeds significantly that effect in a $\nu \bar{\nu }$-gas in empty space considered earlier. These previous treatments of the birefringence relied on the calculations of the refraction index for on-shell photons in vacuum using the forward scattering amplitude $\gamma \nu \to \gamma \nu$ with virtual charged leptons in Feynman diagrams. The possibility to observe experimentally the new effect suggested here is discussed.

arXiv comment12 pages in Latex, 1 eps figure, JCAP LaTeX style; title has been changed, minor corrections in the text; version published in JCAP

References in corpus (15)

• Evidence for strong extragalactic magnetic fields from Fermi observations of TeV blazars
• Neutrino Energy Loss from the Plasma Process at all Temperatures and Densities
• Neutrino physics with the PTOLEMY project: active neutrino properties and the light sterile case
• Updated BBN bounds on the cosmological lepton asymmetry for non-zero theta13
• Neutrino Clustering in Cold Dark Matter Halos : Implications for Ultra High Energy Cosmic Rays
• Long-range magnetic fields in the ground state of the Standard Model plasma
• Cosmological lepton asymmetry with a nonzero mixing angle θ_{13}
• Instability of magnetic fields in electroweak plasma driven by neutrino asymmetries
• The Third Electromagnetic Constant of an Isotropic Medium:
• Standard Model Contributions to the Neutrino Index of Refraction in the Early Universe
• Low Energy Antineutrino Detection Using Neutrino Capture on EC Decaying Nuclei
• Optical Activity of a Neutrino Gas
• Photon-Neutrino Interactions
• Optical activity of neutrinos and antineutrinos
• Photons, neutrinos and optical activity

Cited by in corpus (4)

• Can we explain cosmic birefringence without a new light field beyond Standard Model?
• Towards interferometry of neutrino electromagnetism
• Cross-correlation Power Spectra and Cosmic Birefringence of the CMB via Photon-neutrino Interaction
• Neutrino-Induced Polarization Rotation in Active Galactic Nuclei Plasmas