Evidence of a birefringent universe and the Aquila connection.

[exoscientist]

Two separate and independent means of observation have shown indications that the universe may have an axis of symmetry:<br /><br />Axis of evil' a cause for cosmic concern.<br />13 April 2007<br />Zeeya Merali<br />http://space.newscientist.com/article/mg19425994.000?DCMP=NLC-nletter&nsref=mg19425994.000<br /><br />One of the observational methods, by detection of the polarization of light from distant galaxies, mirrors earlier observations of Ralston and Nodland:<br /><br />Is the Universe Birefringent?<br />"To be more specific, we found that the rate of rotation depends on<br />the angle between the direction of travel of the wave and a fixed<br />direction in space, pointing approximately toward the constellation<br />Sextans from Earth. The more parallel the direction of travel of the<br />wave is with this fixed direction, the greater the rotation. The<br />amount of rotation is also proportional to the distance of travel of<br />the wave. These are the only two dependencies of the rotation.<br />"The curious effect is illustrated in the diagram above. In this<br />diagram, Earth is at the center, and the direction toward Sextans is<br />represented by a red "anisotropy axis.'' The axis extends from Earth<br />toward Sextans in one direction, and toward the constellation Aquila<br />in the opposite direction. A plane-polarized radio wave emitted by<br />Galaxy A (green) travels toward Earth in a direction almost parallel<br />to the anisotropy axis (red). On the other hand, a plane-polarized<br />radio wave emitted by Galaxy B (blue) approaches Earth in a direction<br />almost perpendicular to the anisotropy axis."<br />http://www.aip.org/png/html/birefrin.htm<br /><br />Anisotropy in Electromagnetic Interactions.<br />http://www.rochester.edu/college/rtc/Borge/aniso.html</safety_wrapper <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[h9c2]

I have the feeling that this is an extremely important finding.<br /><br />...But I have absolutely no clue what it means.<br /><br />Can someone put this in layman's terms, so that we could ponder the implications?<br />

 

[docm]

Grossly simplified; <br /><br />the polarization measurements and measurements of the cosmic background indicate that either the universe is rotating on an axis, which few thought was the case, or it has some properties of a crystal, or a bit of both.<br /><br />Yes, it would be a huge deal. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[kyle_baron]

Back to the Astronomy Cafe also talks about this p.158: "If the universe were rotating, the abundance of the elements hydrogen, helium, and deuterium would have changed during the first few minutes after the Big Bang. There would also be a change in the cosmic background radiation that would have been EASILY measurable by NASA'S COBE satellite in the so called quadrupole distribution of the background light. Even as early as 1973, physist Stephen Hawking calculated that the cosmic background light would limit the rotation of the cosmos to about a trillionth of a rotation since the Big Bang".<br /><br />The question boils down to whether the light is rotating, or the physical objects (represented by the light) are rotating gravitationally. I would guess that the 1st suggestion would be more likely. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font size="4"><strong></strong></font></p> </div>

 

[docm]

A documented rotation in the polarization of light was used as evidence for the existence of the AXION particle a few months ago. Hmmmm..... <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[exoscientist]

One of the confriming observations of the WMAP data is remarkable in itself if confirmed:<br /><br />'Axis of evil' a cause for cosmic concern<br />13 April 2007<br />Zeeya Merali<br />...<br />"Now, two independent studies seem to confirm that it does exist. Damien Hutsemékers of the University of Liège in Belgium analysed the polarisation of light from 355 quasars and found that as the quasars get near the axis, the polarisation becomes more ordered than expected. Taken together, the polarisation angles from the quasars seem to corkscrew around the axis.<br />"This is really promising," says Hinshaw. "Cosmologists should sit up and take notice."<br />"Cosmologist Carlo Contaldi of Imperial College London is intrigued, but thinks more quasars should be analysed before drawing conclusions. "There is a danger that once people know about the axis of evil, they start seeing evil in all sorts of sets of data," he says.<br /><i>"The quasar finding has support from another study, however. Michael Longo of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor analysed 1660 spiral galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and found that the axes of rotation of most galaxies appear to line up with the axis of evil (www.arxiv.org/astro-ph/0703325). According to Longo, the probability of this happening by chance is less than 0.4 per cent. "This suggests the axis is real, and not simply an error in the WMAP data,' he says."</i><br />http://space.newscientist.com/article/mg19425994.000?DCMP=NLC-nletter&nsref=mg19425994.000<br /><br />This seems to be saying that the axes through the centers of most spiral galaxies are all aligned in the same direction. If so, this would be remarkable that this wasn't noticed before.<br />Anyone know if the paper of Michael Longo really does suggest this?<br /><br /><br /><br />Bob Clark <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>