# ELECTRICAL CONDUCTION IN THE EARLY UNIVERSE

## 1 Introduction

The strong magnetic fields measured in many spiral galaxies, $`B2\times 10^6`$ G, are conjectured to be produced primordially; proposed mechanisms include fluctuations during an inflationary universe  or at the GUT scale, and plasma turbulence during the electroweak transition or in the quark-gluon hadronization transition. The production and later diffusion of magnetic fields depends crucially on the electrical conductivity, $`\sigma _{el}`$, of the matter in the universe; typically, over the age of the universe, $`t`$, fields on length scales smaller than $`L(t/4\pi \sigma _{el})^{1/2}`$ are damped.

The electrical conductivity was estimated in  in the relaxation time approximation as $`\sigma _{el}n\alpha \tau _{el}/m`$ with $`mT`$ and relaxation time $`\tau _{el}1/(\alpha ^2T)`$, where $`\alpha =e^2/4\pi `$. In Refs.  the relaxation time was corrected with the Coulomb logarithm. A deeper understanding of the screening properties in QED and QCD plasmas has made it possible to calculate a number of transport coefficients including viscosities, diffusion coefficients, momentum stopping times, etc., exactly in the weak coupling limit . However, calculation of processes that are sensitive to very singular forward scatterings remain problematic. For example, the calculated color diffusion and conductivity , even with dynamical screening included, remain infrared divergent due to color exchange in forward scatterings. Also the quark and gluon damping rates at non-zero momenta calculated by resumming ring diagrams exhibit infrared divergences  whose resolution requires more careful analysis including higher order diagrams as, e.g., in the Bloch-Nordsieck calculation of Ref. . Charge exchanges through $`W^\pm `$, processes similar to gluon color exchange in QCD, are important in forward scatterings at temperatures above the $`W`$ mass, $`M_W`$.

## 2 Electrical conductivities in high temperature QED

The electrical conductivity in the electroweak symmetry-broken phase at temperatures below the electroweak boson mass scale, $`M_WTm_e`$, is dominated by charged leptons $`\mathrm{}=e^{},\mu ^{},\tau ^{}`$ and anti-leptons $`\overline{\mathrm{}}=e^+,\mu ^+,\tau ^+`$ currents. In the broken-symmetry phase weak interactions between charged particles, which are generally smaller by a factor $`(T/M_W)^4`$ compared with photon-exchange processes, can be ignored. The primary effect of strong interactions is to limit the drift of strongly interacting particles, and we need consider only electromagnetic interactions between charged leptons and quarks.

Transport processes are most simply described by the Boltzmann kinetic equation for the distribution functions of particle species $`i`$, of charge $`e`$. We use the standard methods of linearizing around equilibrium with a collision term with interactions given by perturbative QED. We refer to  for details of the calculation but note the essential physics of Debye screening of the longitudinal (electric) interactions and Landau damping of the transverse (magnetic) interactions. The electrical conductivity for charged leptons is to leading logarithmic order 

$`\sigma _{el}^{(\mathrm{}\overline{\mathrm{}})}`$ $``$ $`j_\mathrm{}\overline{\mathrm{}}/E={\displaystyle \frac{3\zeta (3)}{\mathrm{ln}2}}{\displaystyle \frac{T}{\alpha \mathrm{ln}(C/\alpha N_l)}},m_eTT_{QGP}.`$ (1)   
where the constant $`C1`$ in the logarithm gives the next to leading order terms. Note that the number of lepton species drops out except in the logarithm. The above calculation taking only electrons as massless leptons ($`N_l=1`$) gives a first approximation to the electrical conductivity in the temperature range $`m_eTT_{QGP}`$, below the hadronization transition, $`T_{QGP}150`$ GeV, at which hadronic matter undergoes a transition to a quark-gluon plasma. Thermal pions and muons in fact also reduce the conductivity by scattering electrons, but they do not become significant current carriers because their masses are close to $`T_{QGP}`$.

For temperatures $`T>T_{QGP}`$, the matter consists of leptons and deconfined quarks. The quarks themselves contribute very little to the current, since strong interactions limit their drift velocity. However, they are effective scatterers, and thus modify the conductivity (see  and Fig. 1):

$`\sigma _{el}={\displaystyle \frac{N_l}{N_l+3_q^{N_q}Q_q^2}}\sigma _{el}^{(\mathrm{}\overline{\mathrm{}})},T_{QGP}TM_W.`$ (2)   
## 3 The symmetry-restored phase

To calculate the conductivity well above the electroweak transition, $`TT_c100`$GeV , where the electroweak symmetries are fully restored, we describe the electroweak interactions by the standard model Weinberg-Salam Lagrangian with minimal Higgs ($`\varphi `$). At temperatures below $`T_c`$, the Higgs mechanism naturally selects the representation $`W^\pm `$, $`Z^0`$, and $`\gamma `$ of the four intermediate vector bosons. At temperatures above the transition – where $`\varphi `$ vanishes for a sharp transition, or tends to zero for a crossover – we consider driving the system with external vector potentials $`A^a=B,W^\pm ,W^3`$, which give rise to corresponding “electric” fields $`E_i^aF_{i0}^a=_iA_0^a_0A_i^a`$ for $`A^a=B`$ and $`F_{i0}^a=_iA_0^a_0A_i^agϵ_{abc}A_i^bA_0^c`$ for $`A^a=W^1,W^2,W^3`$. One can equivalently drive the system with the electromagnetic and weak fields derived from $`A`$, $`Z^0`$, and $`W^\pm `$, as when $`TT_c`$, or any other rotated combination of these. We consider here only the weak field limit and ignore the nonlinear driving terms. The self-couplings between gauge bosons are important, however, in the scattering processes in the plasma determining the conductivity.

The electroweak fields $`A^b`$ act on the matter to generate currents $`J_a`$ of the various particles present in the plasma, such as left and right-handed leptons and their antiparticles, and quarks, vector bosons, and Higgs bosons. The Higgs and vector boson contributions are negligible. Therefore the significant terms in the currents are $`J_B^\mu =\frac{g^{}}{2}(\overline{L}\gamma ^\mu YL+\overline{R}\gamma ^\mu YR)`$ and $`J_{W^i}^\mu =\frac{g}{2}\overline{L}\gamma ^\mu \tau _iL`$. We define the conductivity tensor $`\sigma _{ab}`$ in general by

$`𝐉_a=\sigma _{ab}𝐄^b.`$ (3)   
The electroweak $`U(1)\times SU(2)`$ symmetry implies that the conductivity tensor, $`\sigma _{ab}`$, in the high temperature phase is diagonal in the representation , as can be seen directly from the (weak field) Kubo formula which relates the conductivity to (one-boson irreducible) current-current correlation functions. The construction of the conductivity in terms of the Kubo formula assures that the conductivity and hence the related entropy production in electrical conduction are positive. Then $`\sigma =Diag(\sigma _{BB},\sigma _{WW},\sigma _{WW},\sigma _{WW})`$. Due to isospin symmetry of the $`W`$-interactions the conductivities $`\sigma _{W^iW^i}`$ are the same, $`\sigma _{WW}`$, but differ from the $`B`$-field conductivity, $`\sigma _{BB}`$.

The calculation of the conductivities $`\sigma _{BB}`$ and $`\sigma _{WW}`$ in the weak field limit parallels that done for $`TT_c`$. The main difference is that weak interactions are no longer suppressed by a factor $`(T/M_W)^4`$ and the exchange of electroweak vector bosons must be included. The conductivity, $`\sigma _{BB}`$, for the abelian gauge field $`B`$ can be calculated similarly to the electrical conductivity at $`TT_c`$.

Although the quarks and $`W^\pm `$ are charged, their drifts in the presence of an electric field do not significantly contribute to the electrical conductivity. Charge flow of the quarks is stopped by strong interactions, while similarly flows of the $`W^\pm `$ are effectively stopped by $`W^++W^{}Z^0`$, via the triple boson coupling. Charged Higgs bosons are likewise stopped via $`W^\pm \varphi ^{}\varphi `$ couplings. These particles do, however, affect the conductivity by scattering leptons. Particle masses have negligible effect on the conductivities.

These considerations imply that the $`B`$ current consists primarily of right-handed $`e^\pm `$, $`\mu ^\pm `$ and $`\tau ^\pm `$, interacting only through exchange of uncharged vector bosons $`B`$, or equivalently $`\gamma `$ and $`Z^0`$. Because the left-handed leptons interact through $`𝐖`$ as well as through $`B`$, they give only a minor contribution to the current. They are, however, effective scatterers of right-handed leptons. The resulting conductivity is (see  for details)

$`\sigma _{BB}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{9}{19}}\mathrm{cos}^2\theta _W\sigma _{el},TT_c.`$ (4)   
Applying a $`W^3`$ field to the electroweak plasma drives the charged leptons and neutrinos oppositely since they couple through $`g\tau _3W_3`$. In this case, exchanges of $`W^\pm `$ dominate the interactions as charge is transferred in the singular forward scatterings and Landau damping is not sufficient to screen the interaction, a QCD magnetic (gluon) mass, $`m_{mag}g^2T`$, will provide an infrared cutoff. We expect that $`\sigma _{WW}\alpha \sigma _{BB}`$. This effect of $`W^\pm `$ exchange is analogous to the way gluon exchange in QCD gives strong stopping and reduces the “color conductivity” significantly ; similar effects are seen in spin diffusion in Fermi liquids .

The electrical conductivity is found from $`\sigma _{BB}`$ and $`\sigma _{WW}`$ by rotating the $`B`$ and $`W^3`$ fields and currents by the Weinberg angle; using Eq. (3), $`(J_A,J_{Z^0})=(\theta _W)\sigma (\theta _W)(A,Z^0)`$. Thus the electrical conductivity is given by

$`\sigma _{AA}=\sigma _{BB}\mathrm{cos}^2\theta _W+\sigma _{WW}\mathrm{sin}^2\theta _W;`$ (5)   
$`\sigma _{el}/T`$ above the electroweak transition differs from that below mainly by a factor $`\mathrm{cos}^4\theta _W0.6`$.

## 4 Summary and Outlook

Typically, $`\sigma _{el}T/\alpha \mathrm{ln}(1/\alpha )`$, where the logarithmic dependence on the coupling constant arises from Debye and dynamical screening of small momentum-transfer interactions. In the quark-gluon plasma, at $`TT_{QGP}150`$ MeV, the additional stopping on quarks reduces the electrical conductivity from that in the hadronic phase. In the electroweak symmetry-restored phase, $`TT_c`$, interactions between leptons and $`W^\pm `$ and $`Z^0`$ bosons reduce the conductivity further. It does not vanish (as one might have imagined to result from singular unscreened $`W^\pm `$-exchanges), and is larger than previous estimates, within an order of magnitude. The current is carried mainly by right-handed leptons since they interact only through exchange of $`\gamma `$ and $`Z^0`$.

From the above analysis we can infer the qualitative behavior of other transport coefficients. The characteristic electrical relaxation time, $`\tau _{el}(\alpha ^2\mathrm{ln}(1/\alpha )T)^1`$, defined from $`\sigma _{el}e^2n\tau _{el}/T`$, is a typical “transport time” which determines relaxation of transport processes when charges are involved. Right-handed leptons interact through $`Z^0`$ exchanges only, whereas left-handed leptons may change into neutrinos by $`W^\pm `$ exchanges as well. Since $`Z^0`$ exchange is similar to photon exchange when $`TT_c`$, the characteristic relaxation time is similar to that for electrical conduction, $`\tau _\nu (\alpha ^2\mathrm{ln}(1/\alpha )T)^1`$ (except for the dependence on the Weinberg angle). Thus the viscosity is $`\eta \tau _\nu T^3/(\alpha ^2\mathrm{ln}(1/\alpha ))`$. For $`TM_W`$ the neutrino interaction is suppressed by a factor $`(T/M_W)^4`$; in this regime neutrinos have longest mean free paths and dominate the viscosity.

The electrical conductivity of the plasma in the early universe is sufficiently large that large-scale magnetic flux present in this period does not diffuse significantly over timescales of the expansion of the universe. The time for magnetic flux to diffuse on a distance scale $`L`$ is $`\tau _{diff}\sigma _{el}L^2`$. Since the expansion timescale $`t_{exp}`$ is $`1/(t_{\mathrm{Planck}}T^2)`$, where $`t_{\mathrm{Planck}}10^{43}`$ s is the Planck time, one readily finds that $`\frac{\tau _{diff}}{t_{exp}}\alpha x^2\frac{\tau _{el}}{t_{\mathrm{Planck}}}1`$, where $`x=L/ct_{exp}`$ is the diffusion length scale in units of the distance to the horizon. As described in Refs. , sufficiently large domains with magnetic fields in the early universe would survive to produce the primordial magnetic fields observed today.

## Acknowledgments

To my collaborator G. Baym, and for discussions with C.J. Pethick and J.Popp.

## References