Large-Scale Magnetic Fields in the Universe

A collection of sixteen coordinated reviews on the origins of large-scale magnetic fields in the Universe, this book discusses magnetic fields in all relevant astrophysical contexts, from the interstellar medium to the scales of galaxies and clusters of galaxies. Magnetic fields are described in their very diverse environments, from stellar winds to galactic haloes and astrophysical jets; together with the roles they play in forming the structures and shaping the dynamics of these objects. Both observational evidence and its theoretical interpretations are covered up to the largest scales in the Universe. The authors are all leading scientists in their fields, making this book an authoritative, up-to-date and enduring contribution to astrophysics. This volume is aimed at graduate students and researchers in astrophysics. Previously published in Space Science Reviews journal, Vol. 166/1-4 and Vol. 169/1-4, 2012.

Dr. Rainer Beck is senior researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn, Germany. He has been working on galactic magnetic fields since the 1970s, published about 400 papers and organized the first IAU conference on this topic in 1989. He is Principle Investigator of the LOFAR Key Science Project on Cosmic Magnetism and member of the Science Working Group of the Square Kilometre Array. Prof. Andre Balogh is Emeritus Professor of Space Physics in Imperial College London and a past Director of the International Space Science Institute in Bern, Switzerland. He has participated in numerous scientific space missions since the mid-1960s and has been a Principal Investigator on the Ulysses and Cluster missions. His principal research interest is the observation and study of magnetic fields in the heliosphere and in planetary environments. He is author and co-author of over 450 scientific publications and editor of seven books on solar system topics. Prof. Andrei Bykov is head of the High Energy Astrophysics laboratory at the Ioffe Institute of Physics and Technology at the Russian Academy of Sciences; and professor of St. Petersburg State Politechnical University. His principal research interests are theory and observations of processes in astrophysical objects with extreme energy release - supernovae, gamma-ray bursts and clusters of galaxies. He is author and coauthor of over 200 scientific publications, including the book ‘Turbulence, Current Sheets and Shocks in Cosmic Plasma’ and editor of four books on high energy astrophysics. Prof. Rudolf Treumann is a retired faculty member from the Department of Geophysics and Environmental Sciences at Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich, Germany. He has published widely on plasma physics and astrophysical topics. He is an author of a two-volume textbook on space plasma physics and coeditor of several books on fundamental physics and astrophysics. Lawrence Widrow is a Professor in the Department of Physics, Engineering Physics, and Astronomy at Queen's University in Kingston, Canada. His research interests include the physics of the early Universe, the structure of dark matter halos, particle physics candidates of dark matter, and galactic dynamics. He is author and co-author of nearly 100 scientific publications.