Summary:

Most of the baryonic matter in the Universe is composed of ionized or partially ionized gas permeated by magnetic fields (i.e. plasma state). Magnetic fields therefore play a key role in its evolution.

This conference will be the 7th edition of the series “Magnetic Fields in the Universe: from Laboratory and Stars to the Primordial Structures” that, since 2004, have brought together experts involved in Astrophysical, Space and Laboratory Plasmas and young researchers. The goal of this series is to provide ample exchange of the new results and recent progress in these distinct but closely related research areas and provide the new generation with a broad perspective of the field. It has allowed cross-pollination of disciplines.

The topics addressed cover magnetic fields in a broad variety of processes and environments: from plasma laboratory to the solar corona, the heliosphere, the interstellar medium, external galaxies, clusters of galaxies, the intergalactic medium and the primordial Universe. The perspectives given to the audience on each of these topics are theoretical and/or numerical, as well as observational.

Magnetic fields are notoriously difficult to observe in space because their measurements involve polarized signals that are weak in general and polluted by instrumental effects. Only now do we enter a new era when observations are able to challenge theory. This is so thanks to new facilities in several frequency domains.

Imaging polarimeters in the visible and sensitive bolometers with polarimetry capability in the submillimeter domain have been installed on new telescopes and interferometers, such as ALMA in Chile. These facilities already allow a major step forward in our knowledge of magnetic fields in star forming regions, in molecular clouds, in protoplanetary disks, in stars. In the radio domain, new facilities, such as LOFAR, and coming ones, such as the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) and the Australian SKA pathfinder (ASKAP), will also address fundamental questions about the evolution of the Universe including the origins of the first stars and the generation of magnetic fields in space. Another major international instrument dedicated to cosmic accelerators, the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA), a gamma-ray facility in the 20GeV-100TeV domain, will impact not only the domain of high energy astrophysics but also cosmology and fundamental physics. Another breakthrough is the all-sky survey of polarized emission performed by the Planck satellite over a broad frequency range (70 GHz to 353 GHz). The polarized data have been publicly released in late 2014.