English

Nonlinear Evolution of Cosmic Magnetic Fields and Cosmic Microwave Background Anisotropies

Astrophysics 2009-11-13 v2

Abstract

In this work we investigate the effects of the primordial magnetic fields on cosmic microwave background anisotropies (CMB). Based on cosmological magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulations we calculate the CMB anisotropy spectra and polarization induced by fluid fluctuations (Alfv\'en modes) generated by primordial magnetic fields. The strongest effect on the CMB spectra comes from the transition epoch from a turbulent regime to a viscous regime. The balance between magnetic and kinetic energy until the onset of the viscous regime provides a one to one relation between the comoving coherence length LL and the comoving magnetic field strength BB, such as L30(B/109G)3pcL \sim 30 (B/10^{-9}{\rm G})^3 \rm pc. The resulting CMB temperature and polarization anisotropies are somewhat different from the ones previously obtained by using linear perturbation theory. Our calculation gives a constraint on the magnetic field strength in the intermediate scale of CMB observations. Upper limits are set by WMAP and BOOMERANG results for comoving magnetic field strength of B<28nGB < 28 \rm nG with a comoving coherence length of L>0.7MpcL > 0.7 \rm Mpc for the most extreme case, or B<30nGB < 30 \rm nG and L>0.8MpcL> 0.8 \rm Mpc for the most conservative case.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.astro-ph/0509220,
  title  = {Nonlinear Evolution of Cosmic Magnetic Fields and Cosmic Microwave Background Anisotropies},
  author = {Hiroyuki Tashiro and Naoshi Sugiyama and Robi Banerjee},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/0509220},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. D