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Cyclotron emission effect on CMB spectral distortions
Author(s) -
Burigana C.,
Zizzo A.
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
astronomische nachrichten
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.394
H-Index - 63
eISSN - 1521-3994
pISSN - 0004-6337
DOI - 10.1002/asna.200610547
Subject(s) - cosmic microwave background , physics , bremsstrahlung , compton scattering , astrophysics , cyclotron , polarization (electrochemistry) , redshift , photon , spectral line , cosmic background radiation , scattering , atomic physics , astronomy , nuclear physics , plasma , optics , galaxy , chemistry , anisotropy
We investigated the role of the cyclotron emission (CE) associated to cosmic magnetic fields (MF) on the evolution of cosmic microwave background (CMB) spectral distortions. We computed the photon and energy injection rates by including spontaneous and stimulated emission and absorption. These CE rates have been compared with those of bremsstrahlung (BR) and double Compton scattering (DC), for realistic CMB distorted spectra at various cosmic epochs. For reasonable MF strengths we found that the CE contribution to the evolution of the CMB spectrum is much smaller than the BR and DC contributions. The constraints on the energy exchanges at various redshifts can be then derived, under quite general assumptions, by considering only Compton scattering (CS), BR, and DC, other than the considered dissipation process. Upper limits to the CMB polarization degree induced by CE have been estimated. (© 2006 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)