AAS 207th Meeting, 8-12 January 2006
Session 55 Shocks and Flows within Galaxy Clusters
Oral, Monday, 2:30-4:00pm, January 9, 2006, Wilson A/B

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[55.04] Cosmological Magnetic Fields from Primordial Perturbations

E.R. Siegel (University of Florida)

Strong observational evidence exists supporting the presence of magnetic fields on galactic and extragalactic scales. Although mechanisms that amplify an initially small seed field are known, the origins of these initial seed fields remain obscure. Our results indicate that magnetic fields can arise on all scales directly from the presence of growing cosmological perturbations in the early universe. Due to the difference in scattering cross sections between protons and electrons, local charge separations arise on all cosmological scales. As a result, electric and magnetic fields are generated in the early universe. The magnetic fields created in this manner may persist until very late times, providing a prime candidate for the origin of large scale seed magnetic fields.


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