Astrophysics > High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
[Submitted on 13 Mar 2015 (v1), last revised 16 May 2015 (this version, v2)]
Title:Generation of the magnetic helicity in a neutron star driven by the electroweak electron-nucleon interaction
View PDFAbstract:We study the instability of magnetic fields in a neutron star core driven by the parity violating part of the electron-nucleon interaction in the Standard Model. Assuming a seed field of the order $10^{12}\thinspace\text{G}$, that is a common value for pulsars, one obtains its amplification due to such a novel mechanism by about five orders of magnitude, up to $10^{17}\thinspace\text{G}$, at time scales $\sim (10^3 - 10^5)\thinspace\text{yr}$. This effect is suggested to be a possible explanation of the origin of the strongest magnetic fields observed in magnetars. The growth of a seed magnetic field energy density is stipulated by the corresponding growth of the magnetic helicity density due to the presence of the anomalous electric current in the Maxwell equation. Such an anomaly is the sum of the two competitive effects: (i) the chiral magnetic effect driven by the difference of chemical potentials for the right and left handed massless electrons and (ii) constant chiral electroweak electron-nucleon interaction term, which has the polarization origin and depends on the constant neutron density in a neutron star core. The remarkable issue for the decisive role of the magnetic helicity evolution in the suggested mechanism is the arbitrariness of an initial magnetic helicity including the case of non-helical fields from the beginning. The tendency of the magnetic helicity density to the maximal helicity case at large evolution times provides the growth of a seed magnetic field to the strongest magnetic fields in astrophysics.
Submission history
From: Maxim Dvornikov [view email][v1] Fri, 13 Mar 2015 17:42:13 UTC (34 KB)
[v2] Sat, 16 May 2015 18:33:00 UTC (36 KB)
Current browse context:
astro-ph.HE
References & Citations
Bibliographic and Citation Tools
Bibliographic Explorer (What is the Explorer?)
Connected Papers (What is Connected Papers?)
Litmaps (What is Litmaps?)
scite Smart Citations (What are Smart Citations?)
Code, Data and Media Associated with this Article
alphaXiv (What is alphaXiv?)
CatalyzeX Code Finder for Papers (What is CatalyzeX?)
DagsHub (What is DagsHub?)
Gotit.pub (What is GotitPub?)
Hugging Face (What is Huggingface?)
Papers with Code (What is Papers with Code?)
ScienceCast (What is ScienceCast?)
Demos
Recommenders and Search Tools
Influence Flower (What are Influence Flowers?)
CORE Recommender (What is CORE?)
IArxiv Recommender
(What is IArxiv?)
arXivLabs: experimental projects with community collaborators
arXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website.
Both individuals and organizations that work with arXivLabs have embraced and accepted our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only works with partners that adhere to them.
Have an idea for a project that will add value for arXiv's community? Learn more about arXivLabs.