Circularly polarized gravitational waves in Chern-Simons gravity originated from an axion domain wall

Abstract

We study a scattering problem of gravitational waves (GWs) by an axion domain wall in Chern-Simons (CS) gravity. We find that circular polarization of GWs is produced after passing through the domain wall. It turns out that the circular polarization is sizable if the frequency of the GW is comparable to a critical value determined by the characteristic CS length scale and the energy scale of the axion domain wall. Thus, observations of the circular polarization could give a stringent constraint on the characteristic CS length scale or could be a new avenue to search for axion.