Large-scale alignments of quasar polarization vectors. Observational evidence and possible implications for cosmology and fundamental physics

Based on a sample of 355 quasars with significant optical linear polarization and using various statistical methods, we show that quasar polarization vectors are not randomly oriented over the sky with a probability often in excess of 99.9%. The polarization vectors appear coherently aligned over huge regions of the sky (~1 Gpc), located at both low (z ~0.5) and high (z ~1.5) redshifts and characterized by different preferred directions of the polarization. These characteristics make the alignment effect difficult to explain in terms of contamination by instrumental or interstellar polarization in our Galaxy. We notice that the region of the sky where the alignments are prominent is not far from preferred directions tentatively identified in the Cosmic Microwave Background. Polarization alignments may thus reveal structures at scales beyond the homogeneity scale of concordance cosmology. Several interpretations are discussed. In particular, we show that the dichroism and birefringence predicted by photon pseudo-scalar oscillation along the line of sight cannot reproduce the observed properties of the alignments. Besides, accurate measurements of quasar circular polarization allow us to strongly constrain the parameter space of axion-like particles.