Primordial magnetic seeds from string cosmology

Abstract

After a discussion of the inflationary production of primordial magnetic seeds, and a short review of various possible mechanisms, we concentrate on the analysis of the photon-dilaton coupling typical of string theory models. Particular attention is paid to the constraints to be imposed on the primordial seed spectrum, and to the possibility of obtaining phenomenological signatures of heterotic and Type I superstrings, in principle accessible to present (or near-future) observations.

Four pages, two figures, to appear in the Proc. of the Int. Conference on "The Origin and Evolution of Cosmic Magnetism", Bologna, 29 August - 2 September 2005, eds. R. Beck, G. Brunetti, L. Feretti and B. Gaensler (Atronomische Nachrichten, Wiley, 2005)