# Plasma Constraints on the Cosmological Abundance of Magnetic Monopoles and the Origin of Cosmic Magnetic Fields

## TL;DR

This paper uses plasma physics and cosmic magnetic field observations to set new limits on the abundance of magnetic monopoles, suggesting they cannot account for dark matter and proposing mechanisms for their role in cosmic magnetism.

## Contribution

It introduces a plasma-based method to constrain magnetic monopole abundance and links monopole plasma effects to the origin of cosmic magnetic fields.

## Key findings

- Upper limit on monopole density: $oxed{ ext{Ω}_M
ot extgreater 3 imes 10^{-4}}$
- Existence of magnetic Langmuir waves and turbulence predicted
- Monopole plasma effects may generate observed intracluster magnetic fields

## Abstract

Existing theoretical and observational constraints on the abundance of magnetic monopoles are limited. Here we demonstrate that an ensemble of monopoles forms a plasma whose properties are well determined and whose collective effects place new tight constraints on the cosmological abundance of monopoles. In particular, the existence of micro-Gauss magnetic fields in galaxy clusters and radio relics implies that the scales of these structures are below the Debye screening length, thus setting an upper limit on the cosmological density parameter of monopoles, $\Omega_M\lesssim3\times10^{-4}$, which precludes them from being the dark matter. Future detection of Gpc-scale coherent magnetic fields could improve this limit by a few orders of magnitude. In addition, we predict the existence of magnetic Langmuir waves and turbulence which may appear on the sky as "zebra patterns" of an alternating magnetic field with ${\bf k\cdot B}\not=0$. We also show that magnetic monopole Langmuir turbulence excited near the accretion shock of galaxy clusters may be an efficient mechanism for generating the observed intracluster magnetic fields.