Searching for primordial helical magnetic fields
arXiv:2008.06279 · doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.102.083001
Abstract
The presence of non-zero helicity in intergalactic magnetic fields (IGMF) has been suggested as a clear signature for their primordial origin. We extend a previous analysis of diffuse Fermi-LAT gamma-ray data from 2.5 to more than 11 years and show that a hint for helical magnetic fields in the 2.5 year data was a statistical fluctuation. Then we examine the detection prospects of helical magnetic fields using individual sources as, e.g., TeV gamma-ray blazars. We find that a detection is challenging employing realistic models for the cascade evolution, the IGMF and the detector resolution in our simulations.
10 pages, 14 png figures; v2: improved quality of the figures, matches published version
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