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We numerically study axion-U(1) inflation, focusing on the regime where the coupling between axions and gauge fields results in significant backreaction from the amplified gauge fields during inflation. These amplified gauge fields not only generate high-frequency gravitational waves (GWs) but also induce spatial inhomogeneities in the axion field, which can lead to the formation of primordial black holes (PBHs). Both GWs and PBHs serve as key probes for constraining the coupling strength between the axion and gauge fields. We find that, when backreaction is important during inflation, the constraints on the coupling strength due to GW overproduction are relaxed compared to previous studies, in which backreaction matters only after inflation. For PBH formation, understanding the probability density function (PDF) of axion field fluctuations is crucial. While earlier analytical studies assumed that these fluctuations followed a $\chi^2$-distribution, our results suggest that the PDF tends toward a Gaussian distribution in cases where gauge field backreaction is important, regardless whether during or after inflation. We also calculate the spectrum of the produced magnetic fields in this model and find that their strength is compatible with the observed lower limits., Comment: 28 pages, 12 figures

We explore the redshift evolution of the radio luminosity function (RLF) of star-forming galaxies using GALFORM, a semi-analytic model of galaxy formation and a dynamo model of the magnetic field evolving in a galaxy. Assuming energy equipartition between the magnetic field and cosmic rays, we derive the synchrotron luminosity of each sample galaxy. In a model where the turbulent speed is correlated with the star formation rate, the RLF is in fair agreement with observations in the redshift range $0 \leq z \leq 2$. At larger redshifts, the structure of galaxies, their interstellar matter and turbulence appear to be rather different from those at $z\lesssim2$, so that the turbulence and magnetic field models applicable at low redshifts become inadequate. The strong redshift evolution of the RLF at $0 \leq z \leq 2$ can be attributed to an increased number, at high redshift, of galaxies with large disc volumes and strong magnetic fields. On the other hand, in models where the turbulent speed is a constant or an explicit function of $z$, the observed redshift evolution of the RLF is poorly captured. The evolution of the interstellar turbulence and outflow parameters appear to be major (but not the only) drivers of the RLF changes. We find that both the small- and large-scale magnetic fields contribute to the RLF but the small-scale field dominates at high redshifts. Polarisation observations will therefore be important to distinguish these two components and understand better the evolution of galaxies and their nonthermal constituents., Comment: 19 pages, 8 figures. MNRAS, in press

The structure of magnetic fields in galaxies remains poorly constrained, despite the importance of magnetism in the evolution of galaxies. Radio synchrotron and far-infrared (FIR) polarization and polarimetric observations are the best methods to measure galactic scale properties of magnetic fields in galaxies beyond the Milky Way. We use synthetic polarimetric observations of a simulated galaxy to identify and quantify the regions, scales, and interstellar medium (ISM) phases probed at FIR and radio wavelengths. Our studied suite of magnetohydrodynamical cosmological zoom-in simulations features high-resolutions (10 pc full-cell size) and multiple magnetization models. Our synthetic observations have a striking resemblance to those of observed galaxies. We find that the total and polarized radio emission extends to approximately double the altitude above the galactic disk (half-intensity disk thickness of $h_\text{I radio} \sim h_\text{PI radio} = 0.23 \pm 0.03$ kpc) relative to the total FIR and polarized emission that are concentrated in the disk midplane ($h_\text{I FIR} \sim h_\text{PI FIR} = 0.11 \pm 0.01$ kpc). Radio emission traces magnetic fields at scales of $\gtrsim 300$ pc, whereas FIR emission probes magnetic fields at the smallest scales of our simulations. These scales are comparable to our spatial resolution and well below the spatial resolution ($<300$ pc) of existing FIR polarimetric measurements. Finally, we confirm that synchrotron emission traces a combination of the warm neutral and cold neutral gas phases, whereas FIR emission follows the densest gas in the cold neutral phase in the simulation. These results are independent of the ISM magnetic field strength. The complementarity we measure between radio and FIR wavelengths motivates future multiwavelength polarimetric observations to advance our knowledge of extragalactic magnetism., Comment: Accepted for publication in the ApJ. Replaced to match final version. 35 pages, 17 figures, 4 tables

We study the magneto-rotational instability (MRI) driven dynamo in a geometrically thin disc ($H/R\ll 1$) using stratified zero net flux (ZNF) shearing box simulations. We find that mean fields and EMFs oscillate with a primary frequency $f_{\rm dyn} = 0.017$ ($\approx 9$ orbital period), but also have higher harmonics at $3f_{\rm dyn}$. Correspondingly, the current helicity, has two frequencies $2f_{\rm dyn}$ and $4f_{\rm dyn}$ respectively, which appear to be the beat frequencies of mean fields and EMFs as expected from the magnetic helicity density evolution equation. Further, we adopt a novel inversion algorithm called the `Iterative Removal Of Sources' (IROS), to extract the turbulent dynamo coefficients in the mean-field closure using the mean magnetic fields and EMFs obtained from the shearing box simulation. We show that an $\alpha-$effect ($\alpha_{yy}$) is predominantly responsible for the creation of the poloidal field from the toroidal field, while shear generates back a toroidal field from the poloidal field; indicating that an $\alpha-\Omega$-type dynamo is operative in MRI-driven accretion discs. We also find that both strong outflow ($\bar{v}_z$) and turbulent pumping ($\gamma_z$ ) transport mean fields away from the mid-plane. Instead of turbulent diffusivity, they are the principal sink terms in the mean magnetic energy evolution equation. We find encouraging evidence that a generative helicity flux is responsible for the effective $\alpha$-effect. Finally, we point out potential limitations of horizontal ($x-y$) averaging in defining the `mean' on the extraction of dynamo coefficients and their physical interpretations., Comment: 16 pages, 13 figures, published in MNRAS

We describe a novel method to compute the components of dynamo tensors from direct magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulations. Our method relies upon an extension and generalisation of the standard H\"ogbom CLEAN algorithm widely used in radio astronomy to systematically remove the impact of the strongest beams onto the corresponding image. This generalisation, called the Iterative Removal of Sources (IROS) method, has been adopted here to model the turbulent electromotive force (EMF) in terms of the mean magnetic fields and currents. Analogous to the CLEAN algorithm, IROS treats the time series of the mean magnetic field and current as beams that convolve with the dynamo coefficients which are treated as (clean) images to produce the EMF time series (the dirty image). We apply this method to MHD simulations of galactic dynamos, to which we have previously employed other methods of computing dynamo coefficients such as the test-field method, the regression method, as well as local and non-local versions of the singular value decomposition (SVD) method. We show that our new method reliably recovers the dynamo coefficients from the MHD simulations. It also allows priors on the dynamo coefficients to be incorporated easily during the inversion, unlike in earlier methods. Moreover, using synthetic data, we demonstrate that it may serve as a viable post-processing tool in determining the dynamo coefficients, even when the power of additive noise to the EMF is twice as much the actual EMF., Comment: 11 pages, 9 figures

Using magnetohydrodynamic simulations of fluctuation dynamos in turbulent flows with rms Mach numbers $\mathcal{M}_{\rm rms} = 0.2, 1.1$ and $3$, we show that magnetic pressure forces play a crucial role in dynamo saturation in supersonic flows. First, as expected when pressure forces oppose compression, an increase in anticorrelation between density and magnetic field strengths obtains even in subsonic flows with the anti-correlation arising from the intense but rarer magnetic structures. In supersonic flows, due to stronger compressive motions density and magnetic field strength continue to maintain a positive correlation. However, the degree of positive correlation decreases as the dynamo saturates. Secondly, we find that the unit vectors of $\nabla\rho$ and $\nabla B^{2}$ are preferentially antiparallel to each other in subsonic flows. This is indicative of magnetic pressure opposing compression. This antiparallel alignment persists in transonic and supersonic flows at dynamo saturation. However, compressive motions also lead to the emergence of a parallel alignment in these flows. Finally, we consider the work done against the components of the Lorentz force and the different sources of magnetic energy growth and dissipation. We show that while in subsonic flows, suppression of field line stretching is dominant in saturating the dynamo, the picture is different in supersonic flows. Both field line stretching and compression initially amplifies the field. However, growing magnetic pressure opposes further compression of magnetic flux which tends to reduce the compressive motions. Simultaneously, field line stretching also reduces. But, suppression of compressive amplification dominates the saturation of the dynamo., Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS

We present the analysis of the magnetic field ($B$-field) structure of galaxies measured with far-infrared (FIR) and radio (3 and 6 cm) polarimetric observations. We use the first data release of the Survey on extragALactic magnetiSm with SOFIA (SALSA) of 14 nearby ($<20$ Mpc) galaxies with resolved (5 arcsec-18 arcsec; $90$ pc--$1$ kpc) imaging polarimetric observations using HAWC+/SOFIA from $53$ to $214$ \um. We compute the magnetic pitch angle ($\Psi_{B}$) profiles as a function of the galactrocentric radius. We introduce a new magnetic alignment parameter ($\zeta$) to estimate the disordered-to-ordered $B$-field ratio in spiral $B$-fields. We find FIR and radio wavelengths to not generally trace the same $B$-field morphology in galaxies. The $\Psi_{B}$ profiles tend to be more ordered with galactocentric radius in radio ($\zeta_{\rm{6cm}} = 0.93\pm0.03$) than in FIR ($\zeta_{\rm{154\mu m}} = 0.84\pm0.14$). For spiral galaxies, FIR $B$-fields are $2-75$\% more turbulent than the radio $B$-fields. For starburst galaxies, we find that FIR polarization is a better tracer of the $B$-fields along the galactic outflows than radio polarization. Our results suggest that the $B$-fields associated with dense, dusty, turbulent star-forming regions, those traced at FIR, are less ordered than warmer, less-dense regions, those traced at radio, of the interstellar medium. The FIR $B$-fields seem to be more sensitive to the activity of the star-forming regions and the morphology of the molecular clouds within a vertical height of few hundred pc in the disk of spiral galaxies than the radio $B$-fields., Comment: 28 pages, 14 figures. Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal

Fluxes of the magnetic helicity density play an important role in large-scale turbulent dynamos, allowing the growth of large-scale magnetic fields while overcoming catastrophic quenching. We show here, analytically, how several important types of magnetic helicity fluxes can arise from terms involving triple correlators of fluctuating fields in the helicity density evolution equation. For this, we assume incompressibility and weak inhomogeneity, and use a quasinormal closure approximation: fourth-order correlators are replaced by products of second-order ones, and the effect of the fourth-order cumulants on the evolution of the third moments is modelled by a strong damping term. First, we show how a diffusive helicity flux, till now only measured in simulations, arises from the triple correlation term. This is accompanied by what we refer to as a `random advective flux', which predominantly transports magnetic helicity along the gradients of the random fields. We also find that a new helicity flux contribution, in some aspects similar to that first proposed by Vishniac, can arise from the triple correlator. This contribution depends on the gradients of the random magnetic and kinetic energies along the large-scale vorticity, and thus arises in any rotating, stratified system, even if the turbulence is predominantly nonhelical. It can source a large-scale dynamo by itself while spatially transporting magnetic helicity within the system., Comment: 19 pages. Version accepted by ApJ. Changes from v1: More prominent discussion of prior work in sec 4.2. Full expression for the helicity fluxes (earlier equation 12) has now been moved to appendix E. Clarified the closure used. Corrected some typos in the explanation of the VC approximation (no change in the presented results)

We present the first data release of the Survey on extragALactic magnetiSm with SOFIA (SALSA Legacy Program) with a set of 14 nearby ($<20$ Mpc) galaxies with resolved imaging polarimetric observations using HAWC+ from $53$ to $214$ $\mu$m at a resolution of $5-18$" ($90$ pc $-$ $1$ kpc). We introduce the definitions and background on extragalactic magnetism, and present the scientific motivation and sample selection of the program. Here, we focus on the general trends in the emissive polarization fraction. Far-infrared polarimetric observations trace the thermal polarized emission of magnetically aligned dust grains across the galaxy disks with polarization fractions of $P=0-15$% in the cold, $T_{\rm d} = [19,48]$ K, and dense, $\log_{10}(N_{\rm HI+H_{2}}) = [19.96,22.91]$, interstellar medium. The spiral galaxies show a median $\langle P_{154\mu m} \rangle = 3.3\pm0.9 $% across the disks. We report the first polarized spectrum of starburst galaxies showing a minimum within $89-154$ $\mu$m. The falling $53-154$ $\mu$m polarized spectrum may be due to a decrease in the dust grain alignment efficiency produced by variations in dust temperatures along the line-of-sight in the galactic outflow. We find that the starburst galaxies and the star-forming regions within normal galaxies have the lowest polarization fractions. We find that 50% (7 out of 14) of the galaxies require a broken power-law in the $P-N_{HI+H_{2}}$ and $P-T_{d}$ relations with three different trends. Group 1 has a relative increase of anisotropic random B-fields produced by compression or shear of B-fields in the galactic outflows, starburst rings, and inner-bar of galaxies; and Groups 2 and 3 have a relative increase of isotropic random B-fields driven by star-forming regions in the spiral arms, and/or an increase of dust grain alignment efficiency caused by shock-driven regions or evolutionary stages of a galaxy., Comment: 43 pages, 28 figures. Accepted for publication to ApJ