Recent astronomical observations have revealed that magnetic fields permeate not only galaxies and clusters, but also the voids and filaments of the cosmic web. The origin of these large-scale magnetic fields remains an open problem, but comparisons with cosmological MHD simulations favour scenarios in which these magnetic fields were produced in the very early Universe. If confirmed, such primordial magnetic fields would offer a unique observational probe of the first microseconds after the Big Bang, potentially connected to physics beyond the Standard Model. In this talk, I will focus on the latest observational results at radio wavelengths, which provide a key window into the magnetised Universe through the processes of synchrotron radiation and Faraday rotation. I will also highlight the exciting future in this area, through the next-generation radio telescope known as the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), which promises to revolutionise our understanding of many areas of astrophysics and cosmology.

Speaker Bio: Dr Shane O'Sullivan is a radio astronomer working at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. He works on understanding radio galaxies and the origin of cosmic magnetic fields. He did his PhD on Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) observations of AGN jets, at University College Cork in Ireland. He spent 5 years as a postdoc in Sydney, Australia. He has also worked at UNAM Mexico City, Hamburg Observatory and Dublin City University. He is currently the co-PI of the LOFAR telescope Magnetism Key Science Project.