If at an early stage of the evolution of the Universe the gauge symmetry of electromagnetism was spontaneously broken, an electric charge asymmetry would develop. After restoration of gauge invariance, the asymmetry should disappear so that the net electric charge density must vanish, the compensating charge being produced from the Higgs vacuum in the form of heavy charged particles. Energetic products of their decay would create an electric current and a local charge asymmetry. Alternatively, such an asymmetry could be created even if the electric current was always conserved but an asymmetry in another nonconserved charge existed. The primary currents which created the asymmetry as well as those damping it via plasma discharge could generate chaotic magnetic fields on astronomically interesting scales. These fields might be large enough to seed the observed magnetic fields in galaxies via a protogalactic dynamo.

• Received 15 June 1992

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.47.3144