English

Constraining Primordial Magnetic Fields with Line-Intensity Mapping

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics 2023-06-22 v2 Astrophysics of Galaxies General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology High Energy Physics - Phenomenology

Abstract

Primordial magnetic fields (PMFs) offer a compelling explanation for the origin of observed magnetic fields, especially on extragalactic scales. Such PMFs give rise to excess of power in small scale matter perturbations that could strongly influence structure formation. We study the impact of the magnetically enhanced matter power spectrum on the signal that will be observed by line-intensity mapping (LIM) surveys targeting carbon monoxide (CO) emission from star-forming galaxies at high redshifts. Specifically, the voxel intensity distribution of intensity maps provides access to small-scale information, which makes it highly sensitive to signatures of PMFs on matter overdensities. We present forecasts for future LIM CO surveys, finding that they can constrain PMF strength as small as B1Mpc0.0061nGB_{\rm 1Mpc}\sim0.006-1\,{\rm nG}, depending on the magnetic spectral index and the targeted redshifts.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2305.06440,
  title  = {Constraining Primordial Magnetic Fields with Line-Intensity Mapping},
  author = {Tal Adi and Sarah Libanore and Hector Afonso G. Cruz and Ely D. Kovetz},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2305.06440},
  year   = {2023}
}

Comments

10 pages, 3 figures, 2 tables; In v2 we used a revised version for the PMFs calculations

R2 v1 2026-06-28T10:31:30.700Z