Salome Mchedlidze, a doctoral student at the Lehmann-Haupt International Doctoral School of Ilia State University and the University of Göttingen, together with her colleagues and with the supervision of Axel Brandenburg and Tinatin Kakhniashvili, Professors of Ilia State University, published the article in the highly-rated journal “Astrophysical Journal” entitled “Evolution of Primordial Magnetic Fields during Large Scale Structure Formation”, Mtchedlidze, S; Dominguez-Fernandez, P; Du, X; Brandenburg, A; Kahniashvili, T, et al. doi: 10.3847/1538-4357/ac5960 929, 127 (2022).
The article deals with the research of large-scale magnetic fields through cosmological simulations. Large-scale magnetic fields are magnetic fields, which are observed across galaxies and galaxy clusters, i.e., across much larger scales than of our nearest star, (also magnetized) the Sun.
The question of the origin of these magnetic fields is still unresolved. Recent observations have also shown that magnetic fields can exist in cosmic void as well, i.e., in the absence of matter.
Such observations have strengthened the pre-existing hypothesis about the origin of magnetic fields, namely that magnetic fields may have originated as a result of processes taking place in the early universe *, like the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). Magnetic fields generated in the early universe are also called Primordial Magnetic Fields. These are the ones studied by the authors in the above-mentioned work.
The study of the Primordial Magnetic Fields is important because we can ‘look’ at different stages of the evolution of the universe. For example, primordial magnetic fields are often seen as the source of gravitational waves, and/or the accelerating factor of the reionization era of the universe. To recount the history of the origin of observable large-scale magnetic fields, it is necessary to study the evolution of magnetic fields. In this article, this topic is explored through numerical modeling and it is shown that information about the distribution of Primordial Magnetic Fields will be preserved in a large part of the universe and future observations (e.g., Square Kilometer Array; SKA) will make it possible to specify their generation mechanisms. Ascertaining generation mechanisms, in turn, will make it possible to understand the contribution of magnetic fields to the formation of today’s large-scale structure.
Ilia State University congratulates the doctoral student on this great success.
2022
