Cosmological Structure Formation Creates Large-Scale Magnetic Fields

Abstract

This paper examines the generation of seed magnetic fields due to the growth of cosmological perturbations. In the radiation era, different rates of scattering from photons induce local differences in the ion and electron density and velocity fields. The currents due to the relative motion of these fluids generate magnetic fields on all cosmological scales, peaking at a magnitude of ~ 10^{-24} Gauss at the epoch of recombination. Magnetic fields generated in this manner provide a promising candidate for the seeds of magnetic fields presently observed on galactic and extra-galactic scales.

9 pages, 3 figures, important error corrected: with the correction, overall field strengths are 10^{-24} Gauss, discussion of other works in the literature expanded, and references added

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• Inflation-Produced Magnetic Fields in Nonlinear Electrodynamics
• Inflation-Produced Magnetic Fields in R^n F^2 and I F^2 models
• The cosmological background of vector modes
• The seed magnetic field generated during recombination
• Vorticity generation at second order in cosmological perturbation theory
• Generic estimates for magnetic fields generated during inflation including Dirac-Born-Infeld theories
• Cosmological magnetic fields from nonlinear effects
• Primordial helium recombination III: Thomson scattering, isotope shifts, and cumulative results
• Large-scale magnetic fields from inflation due to Chern-Simons-like effective interaction
• The interrelation between the generation of large-scale electric fields and that of large-scale magnetic fields during inflation
• Primordial magnetic fields from second-order cosmological perturbations: Tight coupling approximation
• Property of the spectrum of large-scale magnetic fields from inflation
• Can cosmological perturbations produce early universe vorticity?
• Magnetic field spectrum at cosmological recombination revisited
• Constraint on the primordial vector mode and its magnetic field generation from seven-year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe Observations
• Generation of large-scale magnetic fields, non-Gaussianity, and primordial gravitational waves in inflationary cosmology
• Intrinsic Bispectra of Cosmic Magnetic Fields
• Generation of large-scale magnetic fields from inflation in teleparallelism
• Electromagnetic Properties of the Early Universe
• Large-scale magnetic fields from inflation due to a $CPT$-even Chern-Simons-like term with Kalb-Ramond and scalar fields
• Magnetogenesis from isocurvature initial conditions
• Recombination era magnetic fields from axion dark matter
• Particle asymmetries in the early universe
• Primordial Magnetogenesis from Killing Vector Fields