Abstract
It is shown that an unmagnetized nonrelativistic thermal electron-proton plasma spontaneously emits aperiodic turbulent magnetic field fluctuations of strength , where is the normalized thermal electron temperature, the thermal plasma energy density, and the plasma parameter. For the unmagnetized intergalactic medium, immediately after the reionization onset, the field strengths from this mechanism are about in cosmic voids and in protogalaxies, both too weak to affect the dynamics of the plasma. Accounting for simultaneous viscous damping reduces these estimates to in cosmic voids and in protogalaxies. The shear and/or compression of the intergalactic and protogalactic medium exerted by the first supernova explosions locally amplify these seed fields and make them anisotropic, until the magnetic restoring forces affect the gas dynamics at ordered plasma betas near unity.
- Received 12 July 2012
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.109.261101
© 2012 American Physical Society