Limit on Primordial Small-Scale Magnetic Fields from Cosmic Microwave Background Distortions

1999/11/30 by Karsten Jedamzik, K. Jedamzik, V. Katalinic +3 · 8 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Anisotropy #Astronomy #Astrophysics #Astrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena #COSMIC cancer database #Cosmic microwave background #Cosmic ray #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Limit (mathematics) #Magnetic field #Microwave #Nuclear physics #Physics #Quantum mechanics #Scale (ratio) #Solar and Space Plasma Dynamics #astro-ph #hep-ph

paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.85.700

published as Phys.Rev.Lett. 85 (2000) 700-703 · 5 pages, accepted by Physical Review Letters

arxiv created 2000/06/30 · openalex publication_date 2000/07/24 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05

Abstract

Spatially varying primordial magnetic fields may be efficiently dissipated prior to the epoch of recombination due to the large viscosity of the baryon-photon fluid. We show that this dissipation may result in observable chemical potential &mgr; and Compton y distortions in the cosmic microwave background spectrum. Current upper limits on &mgr; and y from FIRAS constrain magnetic fields to have strength B0<3x10(-8) G (scaled to the present) between comoving coherence length approximately 400 pc and approximately 0.6 Mpc. These represent the strongest upper limits on small-scale primordial magnetic fields to date.

Citations

• Phase equilibration in bubble collisions
• Magnetic fields produced by phase transition bubbles in the electroweak phase transition
• Primordial Magnetic Fields from String Cosmology
• Magnetic fields in the early universe in the string approach to MHD
• The Cosmic Microwave Background Spectrum from the FullCOBEFIRAS Data Set

Cited by

• Axial charge segregation and CP-violation during the electroweak phase transition with hypermagnetic fields
• Update on tests of the Cen A neutron-emission model of highest energy cosmic rays
• Cosmological magnetic fields from inflation and backreaction
• Primordial magnetic field limits from cosmological data
• CMB distortion anisotropies due to the decay of primordial magnetic fields
• Astrophysical origins of ultrahigh energy cosmic rays
• Axion production and CMB spectral distortion in cosmological tangled magnetic field
• Nonlinear evolution of cosmic magnetic fields and cosmic microwave background anisotropies