Circular polarization of the cosmic microwave background arises in the standard cosmological model from Faraday conversion of the linear polarization generated at the surface of last scatter by various sources of birefringence along the line of sight. If the sources of birefringence are generated at linear order in primordial density perturbations, the principal axes of the index-of-refraction tensor are determined by gradients of the primordial density field. Since linear polarization at the surface of last scatter is generated at linear order in density perturbations, the circular polarization thus arises at second order in primordial perturbations. Here, we revisit the calculation of the circular polarization using the total-angular-momentum formalism, which allows for some simplifications in the calculation of the angular power spectrum of the circular polarization—especially for the dominant photon-photon scattering contribution—and also provides some new intuition.

• Received 23 April 2018

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.97.123529