Primordial magnetic fields from second-order cosmological perturbations: tight coupling approximation

Abstract

We explore the possibility of generating large-scale magnetic fields from second-order cosmological perturbations during the pre-recombination era. The key process for this is Thomson scattering between the photons and the charged particles within the cosmic plasma. To tame the multi-component interacting fluid system, we employ the tight coupling approximation. It is shown that the source term for the magnetic field is given by the vorticity, which signals the intrinsically second-order quantities, and the product of the first-order perturbations. The vorticity itself is sourced by the product of the first-order quantities in the vorticity evolution equation. The magnetic fields generated by this process are estimated to be ∼10−29 G on the horizon scale at the recombination epoch. Although our rough estimate suggests that the current generation mechanism can work even on smaller scales, more careful investigation is needed to make clear whether it indeed works in a wide range of spatial scales.