plasma-partition

Matter-antimatter origin of cosmic magnetism

abstract

We explore the hypothesis that the abundant presence of relativistic antimatter (positrons) in the primordial universe is the source of the intergalactic magnetic fields we observe in the universe today. We evaluate both Landau diamagnetic and magnetic dipole moment paramagnetic properties of the very dense primordial electron-positron $e^{+}e^{-}$-plasma, and obtain in quantitative terms the relatively small magnitude of the $e^{+}e^{-}$ magnetic moment polarization asymmetry required to produce a consistent self-magnetization in the universe.

authors

Andrew Steinmetz, Cheng Tao Yang, and Johann Rafelski

cite as

Steinmetz, A., Yang, C. T. & Rafelski, J. Matter-antimatter origin of cosmic magnetism. Phys. Rev. D 108 (2023):123522.

doi/arXiv id

• https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.108.123522
• https://arxiv.org/abs/2308.14818

license

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI. Funded by SCOAP3. Published by the American Physical Society.