Cosmology Seminar / Eiichiro Komatsu (Director of the Department of Physical Cosmology, Max-Planck-Institut für Astrophysik)

Parity symmetry is violated in the weak interaction. Do the physical laws behind unsolved cosmological problems, such as dark matter and dark energy, also violate parity symmetry? The polarized light of the cosmic microwave background is sensitive to new physics that violates parity symmetry. In this presentation, we present a tantalizing hint of parity violation in the polarization data from two satellite missions: WMAP and Planck. This signal has also been observed in recent data from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope. Taken together, these findings suggest a cosmological parity violation with a statistical significance of 4 sigma. If this signal is confirmed in the future with higher statistical significance, it would have profound implications for the elusive nature of dark matter and dark energy.