Constraining Primordial Magnetic Fields with Future Cosmic Shear Surveys

Understand

The origin of astrophysical magnetic fields observed in galaxies and clusters of galaxies is still unclear.

• One possibility is that primordial magnetic fields generated in the early Universe provide seeds that grow through compression and turbulence during structure formation.
• A cosmological magnetic field present prior to recombination would produce substantial matter clustering at intermediate/small scales, on top of the standard inflationary power spectrum.
• In this work we study the effect of this alteration on one particular cosmological observable, cosmic shear.