Evidence of isotropy at large-scale from polarizations of radio sources

We test the isotropy of radio polarization angle orientations with a robust and reliable dual frequency polarimetric survey of active galactic nuclei (AGN). We find that the polarization orientations are consistent with the assumption of isotropy for scales larger than or equal to $\sim 800$ Mpc. This provides further evidence of isotropy at large distance scales and is likely to impose strong constraints on some of the physical mechanisms that may be invoked to explain past observations of alignment of radio and optical polarizations at large distance scales.Comment: 6 pages, 9 figures, accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysics (10/12/2018

General Treatment of Reflection of Spherical Electromagnetic Waves from a Spherical Surface and its Implications for the ANITA Anomalous Polarity Events

We develop a general formalism to treat reflection of spherical electromagnetic waves from a spherical surface. Our main objective is interpretation of radio wave signals produced by cosmic ray interactions with Earth's atmosphere which are observed by the Antarctica based ANITA detector after reflection off the ice surface. The incident wave is decomposed into plane waves and each plane wave is reflected off the surface using the standard Fresnel formalism. For each plane wave the reflected wave is assumed to be locally a plane wave. This is a very reasonable assumption and there are no uncontrolled approximations in our treatment of the reflection phenomenon. The surface roughness effects are also included by using a simple model. We apply our formalism to the radiation produced by the balloon-borne HiCal radio-frequency (RF) transmitter. Our final results for the reflected power are found to be in good agreement with data for all elevation angles. We also study the properties of reflected radio pulses in order to study their phase relationship with direct pulses. We find that for some roughness models the pulse shape can be somewhat distorted and may be misidentified as a direct pulse. However this is a rather small effect and is unable to provide an explanation for the observed mystery events by ANITA.Comment: 26 pages, 7 figures, substantial revision

Exploring the Micro-Structure of the Proton: from Form Factors to DVCS

For a long time people made the mistake of thinking the proton was understood. New experiments, ranging from form factors to deeply virtual Compton scattering, promise a new era of highly informative studies. Among the controversial topics of the future may be such basic features as the physical size of the proton, the role of quark orbital angular momentum, and the possibility of making "femto-photographic" images of hadronic micro-structure.Comment: 19 pages, 2 figures, presented by John Ralston at the Workshop on "Testing QCD through Spin Observables in Nuclear Targets", University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, April 18-2