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Cosmic Magnetic Fields

The universe is magnetized. The earth, Sun, Galaxies, Galaxy clusters all host coherent magnetic fields and perhaps even the intergalactic medium in large-scale voids. How do these systems get magnetized? The standard picture involves turbulent dynamo amplification of a weak seed magnetic field. The seed could arise in a cosmic battery and cosmic dynamos then convert kinetic energy of motions to magnetic energy. The processes involved in generation and maintaining of magnetic fields has been the focus of several IUCAA researchers.

Another intriguing possibility is magnetogenesis in the early universe, for example during the inflationary era. Indeed, tentative indications that femto Gauss level magnetic fields pervade even the voids regions almost empty of galaxies could `favor such an idea. The prospects for such early universe magnetogenesis, their subsequent evolution and their signals on the Cosmic Microwave Background, structure formation or stochastic gravitational wave background have also been worked on by IUCAA researchers.