A circular polarimeter for the Cosmic Microwave Background
  A primordial degree of circular polarization of the Cosmic Microwave
Background is not observationally excluded. The hypothesis of primordial
dichroism can be quantitatively falsified if the plasma is magnetized prior to
photon decoupling since the initial V-mode polarization affects the evolution
of the temperature fluctuations as well as the equations for the linear
polarization. The observed values of the temperature and polarization angular
power spectra are used to infer constraints on the amplitude and on the
spectral slope of the primordial V-mode. Prior to photon decoupling magnetic
fields play the role of polarimeters insofar as they unveil the circular
dichroism by coupling the V-mode power spectrum to the remaining brightness
perturbations. Conversely, for angular scales ranging between 4 deg and 10 deg
the joined bounds on the magnitude of circular polarization and on the magnetic
field intensity suggest that direct limits on the V-mode power spectrum in the
range of 0.01 mK could directly rule out pre-decoupling magnetic fields in the
range of 10-100 nG. The frequency dependence of the signal is located, for the
present purposes, in the GHz range.
