Résumé / Abstract Journal-club_GReCO

Séminaire / Seminar GReCO

« Magnetic fields in the Universe: the primordial option »

E. Fenu

I will briefly review the current status of magnetic field observations in the last few years. These experimental observations can be explained assuming that the primordial Universe was permeated by a seed magnetic field. Several mechanisms have been proposed to generate such a primordial field. I will explain how to obtain extremely strong upper bounds on the amplitude of seed magnetic fields by studying their production of gravitational waves. Finally, I will briefly investigate a possible way out to these strong upper bounds: the production of magnetic fields during the recombination epoch, when the tight coupling approximation between photons and baryons breaks down. Is this mechanism able to generate a primordial magnetic field with an amplitude big enough to be a reasonable seed?
lundi 17 janvier 2011 - 11:00
Salle des séminaires Évry Schatzman
Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris
Pages web du séminaire / Seminar's webpage