Joint Astrophysics Colloquium

Convection and Magnetism in Stars: How magnetic fields are built, and what they can do

Matt Browning

CITA

Magnetic fields are ubiquitous in astrophysics. In stars, they help govern spindown and mass loss; in accretion disks, they likely play a crucial role in facilitating angular momentum transport; for some planets, they can act act as partial shields against potentially harmful radiation.

But a comprehensive theory of how such magnetic fields are built — how magnetic “dynamos” work — remains elusive. I will talk about how recent observations and theoretical models of stellar convection are providing powerful new clues about the operation of astrophysical dynamos.