Cosmological magnetic fields

Abstract

Magnetic fields are observed not only in stars, but in galaxies, clusters, and even high redshift Lyman-alpha systems. In principle, these fields could play an important role in structure formation and also affect the anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB). The study of cosmological magnetic fields aims not only to quantify these effects on large-scale structure and the CMB, but also to answer one of the outstanding puzzles of modern cosmology: when and how do magnetic fields originate? They are either primordial, i.e. created before the onset of structure formation, or they are generated during the process of structure formation itself.