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Forward cascade of large-scale primordial magnetic fields during structure formation

Molly Abramson1,*, Emma Clarke1,†, Tina Kahniashvili1,2,3,‡, Sayan Mandal1,2,§, Salome Mtchedlidze4,2,∥, and Jennifer Schober5,¶

  • *Contact author: mabramso@alumni.cmu.edu
  • †Contact author: emmaclar@andrew.cmu.edu
  • ‡Contact author: tinatin@andrew.cmu.edu
  • §Contact author: sayanm@andrew.cmu.edu, all authors listed alphabetically.
  • ∥Contact author: salome.mtchedlidze@unibo.it
  • Contact author: schober@uni-bonn.de
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Phys. Rev. D 114, 043557 – Published 31 August, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/b3g7-yftf

Abstract

The origin of large scale magnetic fields in the Universe is widely thought to be from early Universe processes, like inflation or phase transitions. These magnetic fields evolve via magnetohydrodynamic processes until the epoch of recombination. When structures begin to form in the later Universe, the conservation of magnetic flux amplifies the magnetic fields via the adiabatic collapse of gravitationally bound gas clouds hosting the magnetic fields and moves them to smaller scales. In this work, we have semianalytically studied this forward cascade effect, considering simple models of gravitational collapse of structures. We find that this simple model is able to reproduce the general qualitative features of the evolution of the magnetic field spectrum as seen from magnetized cosmological simulations.

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Phys. Rev. D 114, 043557– Published 31 August, 2026
  • Received 6 August 2025
  • Accepted 3 August 2026
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