Magnetic Field Spectrum at Cosmological Recombination

Abstract

A generation of magnetic fields from cosmological density perturbations is investigated. In the primordial plasma before cosmological recombination, all of the materials except dark matter in the universe exist in the form of photons, electrons, and protons (and a small number of light elements). Due to the different scattering nature of photons off electrons and protons, electric currents and electric fields are inevitably induced, and thus magnetic fields are generated. We present a detailed formalism of the generation of cosmological magnetic fields based on the framework of the well-established cosmological perturbation theory following our previous works. We numerically obtain the power spectrum of magnetic fields for a wide range of scales, from $k\sim 10^{-5}$ Mpc$^{-1}$ up to $k\sim 2\times 10^{4}$ Mpc$^{-1}$ and provide its analytic interpretation. Implications of these cosmologically generated magnetic fields are discussed.