Limits on primordial magnetic fields from direct detection experiments of gravitational wave background

Abstract

Primordial magnetic fields (PMFs) can source gravitational wave background (GWB). In this paper, we investigate the possible constraints on small-scale PMF considering the ongoing and forthcoming direct detection observations of GWB. In contrast to the conventional cosmological probes, e.g., cosmic microwave background anisotropies, which are useful to investigate large-scale PMFs ($>1\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{Mpc}$), the direct detection experiments of GWB can explore small-scale PMFs whose scales correspond to the observed frequencies of GWB. We show that future ground-based or space-based interferometric gravitational wave detectors give a strong constraint of about $1{0}^{2}\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{nG}$ on much smaller scales of about $k\ensuremath{\approx}{10}^{12}\text{ }\text{ }{\mathrm{Mpc}}^{\ensuremath{-}1}$. We also demonstrate that pulsar timing arrays have a potential to strongly constrain PMFs. The current limits on GWB from pulsar timing arrays can put the tight constraint on the amplitude of the PMFs of about 30 nG whose coherent length is about $k\ensuremath{\approx}{10}^{6}\text{ }\text{ }{\mathrm{Mpc}}^{\ensuremath{-}1}$. The future experiments for the direct detection of GWB by the Square Kilometre Array could give much tighter constraints on the amplitude of PMFs of about 5 nG on $k\ensuremath{\approx}{10}^{6}\text{ }\text{ }{\mathrm{Mpc}}^{\ensuremath{-}1}$, on which scales it is difficult to reach by using the cosmological observations.