Constraints on Primordial Magnetic Fields from Planck combined with the South Pole Telescope CMB B-mode polarization measurements

Abstract

A primordial magnetic field (PMF) present before recombination can leave specific signatures on the cosmic microwave background (CMB) fluctuations. Of particular importance is its contribution to the B-mode polarization power spectrum. Indeed, vortical modes sourced by the PMF can dominate the B-mode power spectrum on small scales, as they survive damping up to a small fraction of the Silk length. Therefore, measurements of the B-mode polarization at high-$\ell$ , such as the one recently performed by the South Pole Telescope (SPT), have the potential to provide stringent constraints on the PMF. We use the publicly released SPT B-mode polarization spectrum, along with the temperature and polarization data from the Planck satellite, to derive constraints on the magnitude, the spectral index and the energy scale at which the PMF was generated. We find that, while Planck data constrains the magnetic amplitude to $B_{1\text{Mpc}}<3.3$ nG at 95\% confidence level (CL), the SPT measurement improves the constraint to $B_{1\text{Mpc}}<1.5$ nG. The magnetic spectral index, $n_B$, and the time of the generation of the PMF are unconstrained. For a nearly scale-invariant PMF, predicted by simplest inflationary magnetogenesis models, the bound from Planck+SPT is $B_{1\text{Mpc}}<1.2$ nG at 95% CL. For PMF with $n_B=2$, expected for fields generated in post-inflationary phase transitions, the 95% CL bound is $B_{1\text{Mpc}}<0.002$ nG, corresponding to the magnetic fraction of the radiation density ${\Omega }_{B\gamma }<10^{-3}$ or the effective field $B_{\mathrm{eff}}<100$ nG. The patches for the Boltzmann code CAMB and the Markov Chain Monte Carlo engine CosmoMC, incorporating the PMF effects on CMB, are made publicly available.

12 pages, 9 figures, 4 tables

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• Efficient highly-subsonic turbulent dynamo and growth of primordial magnetic fields
• Primordial Magnetogenesis in a Bouncing Universe
• Mean Energy Density of Photogenerated Magnetic Fields Throughout the Epoch of Reionization
• An upper limit on primordial magnetic fields from ultra-faint dwarf galaxies
• Cosmological magnetic braking and the formation of high-redshift, super-massive black holes
• Constraints on Primordial Magnetic Fields from High Redshift Stellar Mass Density
• Distribution function of nuclei from $e^{\pm }$ scattering in the presence of a strong primordial magnetic field
• Primordial Magnetic Field from Gravitationally Coupled Electrodynamics in Bouncing Scenario