Shock-induced chiral magnetic effect

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that shockwaves in supernovae and neutron star mergers can sustain the chiral plasma instability and generate significant heating, even with finite electron mass damping effects.

Contribution

It shows that shock-induced perturbations can preserve the chiral plasma instability in realistic astrophysical environments, extending previous idealized models.

Findings

Shockwaves can sustain chiral plasma instability despite electron mass damping.

Shock-induced perturbations can generate substantial ohmic heating.

Chiral imbalance from shocks can contribute to magnetic field amplification.

Abstract

Weak-interaction-mediated chiral imbalance generation in idealized massless electrons during core-collapse supernovae was once proposed to be the source of strong magnetic fields found in neutron stars. The effect goes by the name of chiral plasma instability (CPI). However, it was found that a finite electron mass damps out this process, inactivating the instability and preventing magnetic field growth. In this work we show that the instability can survive in the presence of abrupt density and temperature perturbation that drives the system sufficiently far out of weak equilibrium. As an example, we work with such perturbations generated by shockwaves which are common during both core collapse as well as neutron star mergers. We find that the chiral imbalance resulting from shock waves, under the right conditions of density and temperature, can sustain the chiral plasma instability despite the damping from the electron mass. Additionally, in an already magnetized medium, the chiral magnetic effect resulting from shock wave density and temperature perturbation can generate substantial ohmic heating. Our results imply that shockwaves during core-collapse supernovae and merging neutron stars can act as a source of strong heating in a magnetized medium as well as CPI.