Interactions of cosmological gravitational waves and magnetic fields

Elisa Fenu and Ruth Durrer
Phys. Rev. D 79, 024021 – Published 22 January 2009

Abstract

The energy momentum tensor of a magnetic field always contains a spin-2 component in its anisotropic stress and therefore generates gravitational waves. It has been argued in the literature (Caprini and Durrer [C. Caprini and R. Durrer, Phys. Rev. D 65, 023517 (2001)]) that this gravitational wave production can be very strong and that backreaction cannot be neglected. On the other hand, a gravitational wave background does affect the evolution of magnetic fields. It has also been argued (Tsagas et al. [C. G. Tsagas, P. K. S. Dunsby, and M. Marklund, Phys. Lett. B 561, 17 (2003)] [C. Tsagas, Phys. Rev. D 72, 123509 (2005)]) that this can lead to a very strong amplification of a primordial magnetic field. In this paper we revisit these claims and study backreaction to second order.

  • Received 8 September 2008

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.79.024021

©2009 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

Elisa Fenu* and Ruth Durrer

  • Département de Physique Théorique, Université de Genève, 24 quai Ernest Ansermet, 1211 Genève 4, Switzerland.

  • *elisa.fenu@unige.ch
  • ruth.durrer@unige.ch

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Vol. 79, Iss. 2 — 15 January 2009

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