Looking for Cosmological Alfven Waves in WMAP Data

Abstract

A primordial cosmological magnetic field induces and supports vorticity or Alfven waves, which in turn generate cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropies. A homogeneous primordial magnetic field with fixed direction induces correlations between the $a_{l-1,m}$ and $a_{l+1,m}$ multipole coefficients of the CMB temperature anisotropy field. We discuss the constraints that can be placed on the strength of such a primordial magnetic field using CMB anisotropy data from the WMAP experiment. We place 3 $\sigma$ upper limits on the strength of the magnetic field of $B < 15$ nG for vector perturbation spectral index $n=-5$ and $B<1.7$ nG for $n=-7$.