Skip to main content
Limits on the chirality of interstellar and intergalactic space
Abstract
We raise the question of whether velocities of left and right circularly-polarized photons might be different (for reasons other than the well-known Faraday effect). Such a difference could manifest itself either in the time profiles of pulsed or bursting astronomical sources or in the rotation of the direction of polarization of linearly polarized radiation from them. The existing observations of pulsars, gamma ray bursters, and quasar jets are used to set limits to the difference in speed, |c(L) - c(R)|/c̄ between 10-17 and 10-32.
Many UC-authored scholarly publications are freely available on this site because of the UC's open access policies. Let us know how this access is important for you.