Large-scale magnetic fields: galaxy two-point correlation function

Abstract

We study the effect of large-scale tangled magnetic fields on the galaxy two-point correlation function in the redshift space. We show that (i) the magnetic field effects can be comparable to the gravity-induced clustering for present magnetic field strength B0~= 5 × 10-8 G, (ii) the absence of this signal from the present data gives an upper bound B0<~ 3 × 10-8 G and (iii) the future data can probe the magnetic fields of ~=10-8 G. A comparison with other constraints on the present magnetic field shows that they are marginally compatible. However, if the magnetic fields corresponding to B0~= 10-8 G existed at the last scattering surface, they will cause unacceptably large cosmic microwave background radiation anisotropies.