Primordial Magnetic Fields via Spontaneous Breaking of Lorentz Invariance

We show that, during false vacuum inflation, a primordial magnetic field can be created, sufficiently strong to seed the galactic dynamo and generate the observed galactic magnetic fields. Considering the inflaton dominated regime, our field is produced by the Higgs-field gradients, resulting from a grand unified phase transition. The evolution of the field is followed from its creation through to the epoch of structure formation, subject to the relevant constraints. We find ...

We analyze the generation of primordial magnetic fields during de Sitter inflation in a Lorentz-violating theory of Electrodynamics containing a Chern-Simons term which couples the photon to an external four-vector. We find that, for appropriate magnitude of the four-vector, the generated field is maximally helical and, through an inverse cascade caused by turbulence of primeval plasma, reaches at the time of protogalactic collapse an intensity and correlation length such as ...

It is shown that the breaking of the conformal invariance in quantum electrodynamics due to the trace anomaly results in the generation of long wave electromagnetic fields during inflationary stage of the universe evolution. If the coefficient of the logarithmic charge renormalization is large (due to a large number of charged particles species), these primordial electromagnetic fields can be strong enough to create the observed galactic magnetic fields.

We review current ideas on the origin of galactic and extragalactic magnetic fields. We begin by summarizing observations of magnetic fields at cosmological redshifts and on cosmological scales. These observations translate into constraints on the strength and scale magnetic fields must have during the early stages of galaxy formation in order to seed the galactic dynamo. We examine mechanisms for the generation of magnetic fields that operate prior during inflation and durin...

The generation of primordial magnetic seed fields during inflation is studied in a theory derived from the one-loop vacuum polarization effective action of the photon in a curved background. This includes terms which couple the curvature to the Maxwell tensor. The resulting magnetic field strength is estimated in a model where the inflationary phase is directly matched to the standard radiation dominated era. The allowed parameter region is analyzed and compared with the boun...

The simplest gauge invariant models of inflationary magnetogenesis are known to suffer from the problems of either large backreaction or strong coupling, which make it difficult to self-consistently achieve cosmic magnetic fields from inflation with a field strength larger than $10^{-32} G$ today on the $\Mpc$ scale. Such a strength is insufficient to act as seed for the galactic dynamo effect, which requires a magnetic field larger than $10^{-20} G$. In this paper we analyze...

Magnetic fields appear everywhere in the universe. From stars and galaxies, all the way to galaxy clusters and remote protogalactic clouds magnetic fields of considerable strength and size have been repeatedly observed. Despite their widespread presence, however, the origin of cosmic magnetic fields is still a mystery. The galactic dynamo is believed capable of amplifying weak magnetic seeds to strengths like those measured in ours and other galaxies, but the question is wher...

We study the generation of electromagnetic fields in a string-inspired scenario associated with a rolling massive scalar field $\phi$ on the anti-D3 branes of KKLT de Sitter vacua. The 4-dimensional DBI type effective action naturally gives rise to the coupling between the gauge fields and the inflaton $\phi$, which leads to the production of cosmological magnetic fields during inflation due to the breaking of conformal invariance. We find that the amplitude of magnetic field...

We explore cosmological magnetogenesis in the post-inflationary universe, when the inflaton oscillates around its potential minimum and the universe is effectively dominated by cold matter. During this epoch prior to reheating, large-scale magnetic fields can be significantly produced by the cosmological background. By considering magnetogenesis both during and after inflation, we demonstrate that magnetic fields stronger than 10^{-15} G can be generated on Mpc scales without...

We consider the gravitational generation of the massive Z-boson field of the standard model, due to the natural breaking of its conformal invariance during inflation. The electroweak symmetry restoration at the end of inflation turns the almost scale-invariant superhorizon Z-spectrum into a hypermagnetic field, which transforms into a regular magnetic field at the electroweak phase transition. The mechanism is generic and is shown to generate a superhorizon spectrum of the fo...