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arXiv · 2604.22703

Reionization, UV Luminosity and 21$\,$cm Sensitivity to Primordial Magnetic Fields: Impact of Energy Losses

Gaétan Facchinetti·Alexander Korochkin·Laura Lopez-Honorez·Justus Schwagereit
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Abstract

Magnetic fields with field strengths between $10^{-17}\,$G and a few Nanogauss are expected to exist today in the intergalactic medium (IGM). Their origin is unknown, but may be of primordial nature, in which case they would have influenced the thermal and ionization history of the IGM as well as the growth of small-scale matter perturbations. In this work, we revisit constraints on Primordial Magnetic fields (PMFs) by consistently accounting for their energy losses through ambipolar diffusion and decaying turbulences from recombination through the epoch of reionization, which progressively reduces the magnetic field strength over time. We implement these effects in ${\tt HyRec}$ and ${\tt exo21cmFAST}$ to model the interplay between PMFs and astrophysical processes up to reionization. Using a neural-network emulator (${\tt NNERO}$), we perform a MCMC analysis that combines late-time probes of the reionization history and galaxy UV luminosity functions. We find that including PMF energy losses significantly relaxes previous bounds, as the reduced field strength suppresses their imprint on observables. Employing a Fisher matrix analysis, we estimate the sensitivity of the 21$\,$cm signal experiment HERA to the PMFs' imprint on intergalactic medium perturbations and show that 21$\,$cm cosmology could significantly improve on current bounds. Our results highlight the importance of modeling PMF evolution self-consistently with the IGM evolution to extract current bounds and future sensitivities.

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Gaétan Facchinetti, Alexander Korochkin, Laura Lopez-Honorez, Justus Schwagereit. 2026-04-24. Reionization, UV Luminosity and 21$\,$cm Sensitivity to Primordial Magnetic Fields: Impact of Energy Losses. https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.22703

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