Magnetars and the Chiral Plasma Instabilities

Abstract

We propose a possible new mechanism for a strong and stable magnetic field of compact stars due to an instability in the presence of a chirality imbalance of electrons---the chiral plasma instability. A large chirality imbalance of electrons inevitably occurs associated with the parity-violating weak process during core collapse of supernovae. We estimate the maximal magnetic field due to this instability to be of order 10^{18} G at the core. This mechanism naturally generates a large magnetic helicity from the chiral asymmetry, which ensures the stability of the large magnetic field.

5 pages, 2 figures

Cited by in corpus (12)

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• Inhomogeneous phases in the chirally imbalanced $2+1$-dimensional Gross-Neveu model and their absence in the continuum limit
• Dynamo instabilities in plasmas with inhomogeneous chiral chemical potential
• Baryonic matter and beyond
• Shear Viscosity of Turbulent Chiral Plasma