Efficient Highly Subsonic Turbulent Dynamo and Growth of Primordial Magnetic Fields

Radhika Achikanath Chirakkara, Christoph Federrath, Pranjal Trivedi, Robi Banerjee

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    18 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    We present the first study on the amplification of magnetic fields by the turbulent dynamo in the highly subsonic regime, with Mach numbers ranging from 10-3 to 0.4. We find that for the lower Mach numbers the saturation efficiency of the dynamo (Emag/Ekin)sat increases as the Mach number decreases. Even in the case when injection of energy is purely through longitudinal forcing modes, (Emag/Ekin)sat≳10-2 at a Mach number of 10-3. We apply our results to magnetic field amplification in the early Universe and predict that a turbulent dynamo can amplify primordial magnetic fields to ≳10-16 G on scales up to 0.1 pc and ≳10-13 G on scales up to 100 pc. This produces fields compatible with lower limits of the intergalactic magnetic field inferred from blazar γ-ray observations.

    Original languageEnglish
    Article number091103
    JournalPhysical Review Letters
    Volume126
    Issue number9
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 3 Mar 2021

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