External Program 1: Generation, evolution, and observations of cosmological magnetic fields

29 April – 07 June 2024

Generation, evolution, and observations of cosmological magnetic fields is a 6 week program at the Bernoulli Center with the objective to combine experts and young researchers in different areas related to cosmological magnetic fields.

Website : https://indico.cern.ch/event/1334236/

The program is divided in three 2-week meetings. The first week of each meeting consists on a workshop with plenary and contributed talks, and the second week of each meeting consists on open discussions and free time for the participants to discuss or work on collaborative or their own projects.

The Bernoulli center, located at the EPFL campus in Lausanne, provides open shared desk space for accepted participants.

Observations of gamma-ray blazars indicate the presence of intergalactic magnetic fields (IGMF) in the cosmic voids of the large scale structure (LSS) of our current observable Universe. Although their origin is still an open problem, they are possibly relics from the early Universe. New-generation gamma-ray and radio observatories, like the Cherenkov Telescope Array Observatory and the Square Kilometer Array Observatory, respectively, are expected to provide us with detailed measurements of IGMF in different elements of the LSS, including voids and filaments, and clarify the origin of the IGMF in voids.

The main objective of the program is to provide a comprehensive description of cosmological magnetic fields, from the different proposed mechanisms of magnetic field production in the early Universe (first meeting of the program) to their current and future observational probes (third meeting of the program), including BBN, CMB, and the LSS. The program will also review the prospects of combining astrophysical observations with the possible detection of a stochastic gravitational wave background to study primordial magnetic fields in a multi-messenger approach. The evolution of cosmological magnetic fields from their time of generation until the present time is the topic of the second meeting of the program.

Start date & time

29.04.2024

End date & time

07.06.2024