ICTP-EAIFR is pleased to welcome Dr. Jennifer Schober, Professor at the Argelander Institute for Astronomy in Bonn (Germany) who will deliver a hybrid seminar on October 23, 2024 at 4:00 p.m. (Kigali time).

Physical Venue: ICTP-EAIFR Conference room, fifth floor Einstein Building, CST Campus, University of Rwanda.
On-line: Please Register in advance for this meeting here.

Title: Cosmic magnetic fields: A new window to the fundamental physics of the early Universe 

Abstract: Magnetic fields are observed on virtually all astrophysical scales of the modern Universe, from planets and stars to galaxies and galaxy clusters. Observations of blazars suggest that even the intergalactic medium is permeated by magnetic fields. Such large-scale fields were most likely generated very shortly after the Big Bang and therefore are a unique window into the physics of the very early Universe.
In my talk, I will review theoretical models of magnetogenesis and confront these with observational constraints. I will address the possible origin of magnetic fields in the very early Universe, during inflation and the cosmological phase transitions, as well as their pre-recombination evolution in decaying magnetohydrodynamical (MHD) turbulence. Finally, I will present results from high-resolution numerical simulations that show an efficient amplification of magnetic energy due to the so-called chiral anomaly, a standard model effect that necessarily leads to an extension of the MHD equations at high energies.

Biography: Jennifer Schober is a theoretical astrophysicist, specializing in cosmic magnetism, astrophysical fluid dynamics, and early Universe physics. Currently, she is a professor at the Argelander Institute for Astronomy in Bonn, Germany, and a group leader at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland. Before that, she held postdoctoral fellowships at EPFL (Lausanne, 2017-2019) and at Nordita (Stockholm, 2015-2017). She obtained her PhD from Heidelberg University, Germany, in 2014.