title: Can primordial magnetic fields seeded by electroweak strings cause an alignment of quasar axes on cosmological scales?
abstract: The decay of nontopological electroweak strings may leave an observable imprint in the Universe today in the form of primordial magnetic fields. Protogalaxies preferentially tend to form with their axis of rotation parallel to an external magnetic field, and, moreover, an external magnetic field produces torque which tends to align the galaxy axis with the magnetic field. We demonstrate that the shape of a magnetic field left over from two looped electroweak strings can explain the observed nontrivial alignment of quasar polarization vectors and make predictions for future observations.
authors.affiliation: HEPCOS, Department of Physics, SUNY at Buffalo, Buffalo, New York 14260-1500, USA.
authors.forename: Robert
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Poltis
authors.forename: Dejan
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Stojkovic