Origin of primeval seed magnetism in rotating astrophysical bodies

TL;DR

This paper proposes a mechanism for the origin of seed magnetic fields in rotating astrophysical bodies, caused by spin-degeneracy breaking of fermions due to frame dragging in curved spacetime, applicable even to neutral particles like neutrons.

Contribution

It introduces a novel theoretical explanation for seed magnetic field generation in rotating bodies via spin-degeneracy breaking caused by frame dragging effects.

Findings

A seed magnetic field of 0.12 Gauss at neutron star center is predicted.

The mechanism applies to electrically neutral fermions such as neutrons.

The effect arises from spin-degeneracy breaking due to frame dragging in curved spacetime.

Abstract

We show that a primeval seed magnetic field arises due to spin-degeneracy breaking of fermions caused by the dragging of inertial frames in the curved spacetime of rotating astrophysical bodies. This seed magnetic field would arise even due to electrically neutral fermions such as neutrons. As an example, we show that an ideal neutron star rotating at $500$ revolutions per second, having mass $0.83$ M$_{\odot}$ and described by an ensemble of degenerate neutrons, would have $0.12$ Gauss seed magnetic field at its center arising through the breaking of spin-degeneracy.