Lepton asymmetries and the growth of cosmological seed magnetic fields

Primordial cosmological hypermagnetic fields polarize the early Universe plasma prior to the electroweak phase transition (EWPT). As a result of the long range parity violating gauge interaction present in the Standard Model their magnitude gets amplified, opening a new, perturbative way, of accounting for the observed intergalactic magnetic fields.Comment: 4 pages, no figures, final published version available online at http://www.iop.org/EJ/abstract/1029-8479/2008/03/06

Leptogenesis via hypermagnetic fields and baryon asymmetry

We study baryon asymmetry generation originated from the leptogenesis in the presence of hypermagnetic fields in the early Universe plasma before the electroweak phase transition (EWPT). For the simplest Chern-Simons (CS) wave configuration of hypermagnetic field we find the baryon asymmetry growth when the hypermagnetic field value changes due to alpha^2-dynamo and the lepton asymmetry rises due to the Abelian anomaly. We solve the corresponding integro-differential equations for the lepton asymmetries describing such self-consistent dynamics for lepto- and baryogenesis in the two scenarios : (i) when a primordial lepton asymmetry sits in right electrons e_R; and (ii) when, in addition to e_R, a left lepton asymmetry for e_L and nu_eL arises due to chirality flip reactions provided by inverse Higgs decays at the temperatures, T<T_RL ~ 10 TeV. We find that the baryon asymmetry of the Universe (BAU) rises very fast through such leptogenesis, especially, in strong hypermagnetic fields. Varying (decreasing) the CS wave number parameter k_0 < 10^-7 T_EW one can recover the observable value of BAU, eta_B ~ 10^-9, where k_0 = 10^-7 T_EW corresponds to the maximum value for CS wave number surviving ohmic dissipation of hypermagnetic field. In the scenario (ii) one predicts the essential difference of the lepton numbers of right - and left electrons at EWPT time, L_eR - L_eL ~ (mu_eR - mu_eL) / T_EW = Delta mu / T_EW ~ 10^-5 that can be used as an initial condition for chiral asymmetry after EWPT.Comment: Erratum added, version to be published in JCA

Chern-Simons anomaly as polarization effect

The parity violating Chern-Simons term in the epoch before the electroweak phase transition can be interpreted as a polarization effect associated to massless right-handed electrons (positrons) in the presence of a large-scale seed hypermagnetic field. We reconfirm the viability of a unified seed field scenario relating the cosmological baryon asymmetry and the origin of the protogalactic large-scale magnetic fields observed in astronomy.Comment: 4 pages, latex, matches published versio

Neutrino kinetics in a magnetized dense plasma

The relativistic kinetic equations (RKE) for lepton plasma in the presence of a strong external magnetic field are derived in Vlasov approximation. The new RKE for the electron spin distribution function includes the weak interaction with neutrinos originated by the axial vector current ($\sim c_A$) and provided by the parity nonconservation. In a polarized electron gas Bloch equation describing the evolution of the magnetization density perturbation is derived from the electron spin RKE being modified in the presence of neutrino fluxes. Such modified hydrodynamical equation allows to obtain the new dispersion equation in a magnetized plasma from which the neutrino driven instability of spin waves can be found. It is shown that this instability is more efficient e.g. in a magnetized supernova than the analogous one for Langmuir waves enhanced in an isotropic plasma.Comment: 20 pages, no figures, added subsection 2.3 about the lepton current conservation, to be published in Astroparticle Physic

The electromagnetic vertex of neutrinos in an electron background and a magnetic field

We study the electromagnetic vertex function of a neutrino that propagates in an electron background in the presence of a static magnetic field. The structure of the vertex function under the stated conditions is determined and it is written down in terms of a minimal and complete set of tensors. The one-loop expressions for all the form factors is given, up to terms that are linear in the magnetic field, and the approximate integral formulas that hold in the long wavelength limit are obtained. We discuss the physical interpretation of some of the form factors and their relation with the concept of the neutrino induced charge. The neutrino acquires a longitudinal and a transverse charge, due to the fact that the form factors depend on the transverse and longitudinal components of the photon momentum independently. We compute those form factors explicitly in various limiting cases and find that the longitudinal and transverse charge are the same for the case of a non-relativistic electron gas, but not otherwise.Comment: 18 pages. Revtex4, axodra

A potential test of the CP properties and Majorana nature of neutrinos

The scattering of solar neutrinos on electrons may reveal their CP properties, which are particularly sensitive to their Majorana nature. The cross section is sensitive to the neutrino dipole moments through an interference of electro-magnetic and weak amplitudes. We show how future solar neutrino experiments with good angular resolution and low energy threshold, such as Hellaz, can be sensitive to the resulting azimuthal asymmetries in event number, and could therefore provide valuable information on the CP properties and the nature of the neutrinos, provided the solar magnetic field direction is fixed.Comment: 14 pages, 1 figure, eq. (19) corrected. Version to be publishe

Low-energy solar anti-neutrinos

If neutrino conversions within the Sun result in partial polarization of initial solar neutrino fluxes, then a new opportunity arises to observe the anti-\nu_e's in future neutrino experiments in the low energy region (such as BOREXINO or HELLAZ) and thus to probe the Majorana nature of the neutrinos. The \nu_e -> anti-\nu_e conversions may take place for low energy solar neutrinos while being unobservable at the Kamiokande and Super-Kamiokande experiments.Comment: Talk given at TAUP 97, Gran Sasso, Italy, Sep. 1997; LaTeX, 3 pages, 1 postscript figure, uses espcrc2.st

Neutrino Conversions in a Polarized Medium

Electron polarization induced by magnetic fields can modify the potentials relevant for describing neutrino conversions in media with magnetic fields. The magnitudes of polarization potentials are determined for different conditions. We show that variations of the electron polarization along the neutrino trajectory can induce resonant conversions in the active-sterile neutrino system, but cannot lead to level crossing in the active-active neutrino system. For neutrino flavour conversions the polarisation leads only to a shift of the standard MSW resonance. For polarizations \lambda \lsim 0.04 the direct modifications of the potential (density) due to the magnetic field pressure are smaller than the modifications due to the polarization effect. We estimate that indeed the typical magnitude of the polarization in the sun or in a supernova are not expected to exceed $10^{-2}$. However even such a small polarization may lead to interesting consequences for supernova physics and for properties of neutrino signals from collapsing stars.Comment: Latex file, 24 pages including 8 ps figures, uses psfig.st

Dirac Neutrinos and Primordial Magnetic Fields

We consider random primordial magnetic fields and discuss their dissipation, coherence length $L_0$, scaling behaviour and constraints implied by the primoridal nucleosynthesis. Such magnetic fields could excite the right-helicity states of Dirac neutrinos, with adverse consequences for nucleosynthesis. We present solutions to the spin kinetic equation of a Dirac neutrino traversing a random magnetic field in the cases of large and small $L_0$, taking also into account elastic collisions. Depending on the scaling behaviour and on the magnetic coherence length, the lower limit on the neutrino magnetic moment thus obtained could be as severe as $10^{-20}\mu_B$.Comment: 17 pages, HU-TFT-94-2

Gravitational Waves from a Pulsar Kick Caused by Neutrino Conversions

It has been suggested that the observed pulsar velocities are caused by an asymmetric neutrino emission from a hot neutron star during the first seconds after the supernova collapse. We calculate the magnitude of gravitational waves produced by the asymmetries in the emission of neutrinos. The resulting periodic gravitational waves may be detectable by LIGO and LISA in the event of a nearby supernova explosion.Comment: 15 pages, 2 figure