Speaker
Description
The polarization of light from various astrophysical sources could serve as a probe of new physics, including axion-like particles (ALPs). Previously most observational and theoretical studies of such polarization signals have focused on photon energies below the MeV scale, although there are studies of the effect of ALPs on photon intensity at the GeV scale. Extending the studies of polarization to the GeV region requires the measurement of electron-positron pair production. To date, no data on polarization have been released for photons of energies above the pair creation threshold. The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer(AMS-02) provides the opportunity for such a GeV-scale gamma-ray measurement of linear polarization. In this talk, I will discuss the detectability of polarized gamma-ray emission from bright sources with the AMS-02 detector, and the prospects for using this channel to probe ALP parameter space by searching for energy-dependent variations in the polarization degree and angle. I will also provide forecasts for proposed future spectrometers such as AMS-100.
