Abstract
Forthcoming data sets from the Planck experiment and others are in a position to probe the cosmic microwave background (CMB) non-Gaussianity with higher accuracy than has yet been possible, and potentially open a new window into the physics of the very early universe. However, a signal need not necessarily be inflationary in origin, and possible contaminants should be examined in detail. One such is provided by early universe magnetic fields, which can be produced by a variety of models including during an inflationary phase, at phase transitions, or seeded by cosmic defects. Should such fields have been extant in the early universe, they would provide a natural source of CMB non-Gaussianity. Knowledge of the CMB angular bispectrum requires the complete Fourier-space (or "intrinsic") bispectrum. In this paper, I consider in detail the intrinsic bispectra of an early-universe magnetic field for a range of power-law magnetic spectra.
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