On the Origin of Cosmic Magnetic Fields
arXiv:0707.2783 · doi:10.1088/0034-4885/71/4/046901
Abstract
We review the literature concerning how the cosmic magnetic fields pervading nearly all galaxies actually got started. some observational evidence involves the chemical abundance of the light elements Be and B, while another one is based on strong magnetic fields seen in high red shift galaxies. Seed fields, whose strength is of order 10^{-20} gauss, easily sprung up in the era preceding galaxy formation. Several mechanisms are proposed to amplify these seed fields to microgauss strengths. The standard mechanism is the Alpha-Omega dynamo theory. It has a major difficulty that makes unlikely to provide the sole origin. The difficulty is rooted in the fact that the total flux is constant. This implies that flux must be removed from the galactic discs. This requires that the field and flux be separated, for otherwise interstellar mass must be removed from the deep galactic gravitational and then their strength increased by the alpha omega theory.
90 pages and 6 figures; accepted for publication in Reports of Progress in Physics as an invited review
References in corpus (2)
Cited by in corpus (9)
- Turbulence and Magnetic Fields in the Large Scale Structure of the Universe
- Strong magnetic fields in normal galaxies at high redshifts
- Magnetohydrodynamic Simulations of Disk Galaxy Formation: the Magnetization of The Cold and Warm Medium
- Three-Dimensional Relativistic MHD Simulations of the Kelvin-Helmholtz Instability: Magnetic Field Amplification by a Turbulent Dynamo
- Diffuse radio emission from clusters in the MareNostrum Universe simulation
- Magnetohydrodynamic experiments on cosmic magnetic fields
- The influence of magnetic fields on the thermodynamics of primordial star formation
- Active Galactic Nuclei: Sources for ultra high energy cosmic rays?
- Amplification of magnetic fields by dynamo action in Gaussian-correlated helical turbulence