English

Can galactic magnetic fields diffuse into the voids?

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics 2026-01-21 v1 Astrophysics of Galaxies High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena

Abstract

Cosmic voids are magnetized at the level of at least 101710^{-17} G on Mpc scales, as implied by blazar observations. We show that an electrically conducting plasma is present in the voids, and that, because of the plasma, \emph{diffusion} into the voids of galactic fields generated by a mean-field dynamo is far too slow to explain the present-day void magnetization. Indeed, we show that even in the presence of turbulence in the voids, dynamo-generated galactic fields diffuse out to a galactocentric radius of only 200-400 kpc. Therefore, it is challenging to meet the required volume filling-factor of the void magnetic field. We conclude that a primordial origin remains the most natural explanation to the space-filling weak fields in voids.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2510.26918,
  title  = {Can galactic magnetic fields diffuse into the voids?},
  author = {Oindrila Ghosh and Axel Brandenburg and Chiara Caprini and Andrii Neronov and Franco Vazza},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2510.26918},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

14 pages, 6 figures

R2 v1 2026-07-01T07:14:37.404Z