Into The Impossible

In 1990, Sean Carroll’s, George Field and Roman Jackiw wrote an epochal paper that had a tremendous impact on physics, and in particular, on me and my career as a young graduate student in the 1990’s. Recently, evidence for the parity violating effect from Cosmic Microwave Background observations by Planck was announced in Physical Review Letters: https://journals.aps.org/prl/accepted/b0070Yf9I0214c6835b00d89342658c8255c84496 Sean will discuss the background physics behind this effect and the implications for physics if the PRL is confirmed by upcoming polarimeters or otherwise convincing evidence is found. I will discuss some of the experimental challenges to making such a measurement and prospects for upcoming experiments such as CLASS, BICEP Array, SPT3G, Simons Array, ACT, LiteBIRD, Simons Observatory, and CMB Stage 4 to make a definitive, high confidence level claim. While you’re waiting for the livestream to start here is some homework 1) Subscribe to Sean’s Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCR