%0 Journal Article %T Gravity and handedness of photons %A Agullo, I. %A del Rio, A. %A Navarro-Salas, J. %J International Journal of Modern Physics D %D 2017 %V 26 %N 12 %I World Scientific Publ Co Pte Ltd %@ 0218-2718 %G English %F Agullo_etal2017 %O WOS:000414411900003 %O exported from refbase (https://references.ific.uv.es/refbase/show.php?record=3355), last updated on Mon, 20 Nov 2017 09:16:05 +0000 %X Vacuum fluctuations of quantum fields are altered in the presence of a strong gravitational background, with important physical consequences. We argue that a nontrivial spacetime geometry can act as an optically active medium for quantum electromagnetic radiation, in such a way that the state of polarization of radiation changes in time, even in the absence of electromagnetic sources. This is a quantum effect, and is a consequence of an anomaly related to the classical invariance under electric-magnetic duality rotations in Maxwell theory. %K Quantum fields in curved spacetime %K symmetry and conservation laws %K electromagnetic wave propagation %K anomalies %R 10.1142/S0218271817420019 %U http://arxiv.org/abs/1705.07082 %U https://doi.org/10.1142/S0218271817420019 %P 1742001-5pp