***This lecture will take place online, Friends of the RAS will be sent a link to register via Eventbrite***
Magnetic fields are ubiquitous in the universe. While the magnetism of planets and stars is broadly understood, the fields observed in galaxies remain a puzzle and the key to understanding their origin may lie in the events that took place in the first few moments after the Big Bang. The subject of primordial magnetism received renewed attention in recent years when evidence emerged of magnetic fields in voids stretching over cosmological distances. Accounting for the presence of magnetic fields in the primordial plasma may help to resolve another puzzle of modern cosmology -- the so-called Hubble tension. I will review the observational and theoretical status of the primordial magnetic field hypothesis and ways in which it may be confirmed with future observations.
Levon Pogosian received his PhD from Case Western Reserve University and was a research fellow at Imperial College London, Tufts University and Syracuse University before taking on a faculty position at Simon Fraser University, where he is now a Professor of Physics. He is a theoretical cosmologist using the observable universe as a laboratory for testing the laws of Nature. He is particularly interested in dark energy and modified gravity, cosmic magnetic fields, cosmic strings and other relics of the Big Bang.
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