Figure 1 (IMAGE)

Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe

Figure 1

Caption

Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) polarized light subjected to gravitational lensing effects, in addition to cosmic birefringence. On the far left, the white lines show the polarization pattern of the CMB light generated in the early universe. These rotate due to cosmic birefringence, resulting in the currently observed CMB depicted by the black lines on the right side of the image. However, the path of light is bent by the gravitational distortion of space-time created by the large-scale structure in the middle, and so the white lines showing the polarization pattern on the right side of the image shows what is observed. 

Credit

Naokawa and Namikawa, https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.108.063525

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