Based on part of a Ph.D. thesis in the Dept. of Physics, 1967. / Bibliography: p. 29.

Donald M. Dix. / "Submitted to the Department of Mechanical Engineering, M.I.T., August 25, 1961, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Science." "July 9, 1962." / Bibliography: p. 127-128. / Army Signal Corps Contract DA 36-039-sc-78108. Dept. of the Army Task 3-99-20-001 and Project 3-99-00-000. Army Signal Corps Contract No. DA-SIG-36-039-61-G14. National Science Foundation Grant G-9330.

L.A. Harris. / "This report is identical with a doctoral thesis in the Department of Electrical Engineering, M.I.T." "August 29, 1950." / Bibliography: p. 77. / Army Signal Corps Contract No. W36-039-sc-32037 Project No. 102B Dept. of the Army Project No. 3-99-10-022

Benjamin Lax, W.P. Allis, Sanborn C. Brown. / "June 30, 1950." / Bibliography: p. 16. / Army Signal Corps Contract No. W36-039-sc-32037 Project No. 102B Dept. of the Army Project No. 3-99-10-022

E.H. Sondheimer. / "May 31, 1950." / Bibliography: p. 11. / Army Signal Corps Contract No. W36-039-sc-32037 Project No. 102B Dept. of the Army Project No. 3-99-10-022

Leonard C. Maier, Jr. / "November 2, 1949." "This report is essentially the same as a thesis of the same title submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology." / Bibliography: p. 42. / Army Signal Corps Contract No. W36-039-sc-32037 Project No. 102B Dept. of the Army Project No. 3-99-10-022

by N.H. Frank. / "November 20, 1946." / Army Signal Corps Contract No. W-36-039 sc-32037.

Many of the celestial bodies we know are found to be magnetized:the Earth, many of the planets so far discovered, the Sun and other stars,the interstellar space, the Milky Way and other galaxies.The reason for that is still to be fully understood, and this work is meant to be a step in that direction. The dynamics of the interstellar medium is dominated by events likesupernovae explosions that can be modelled as irrotational flows.The first part of this thesis is dedicated to the analysis of some characteristics of these flows, in particular how they influencethe typical turbulent magnetic diffusivity of a medium, and it is shownthat the diffusivity is generally enhanced, except for some specific casessuch as steady potential flows, where it can be lowered.Moreover, it is examined how such flows can develop vorticity when they occur in environments affected by rotation or shear,or that are not barotropic. Secondly, we examine helical flows, that are of basic importance for the phenomenon of the amplification of magnetic fields, namely the dynamo.Magnetic helicity can arise from the occurrence of an instability: here we focus on theinstability of purely toroidal magnetic fields, also known as Tayler instability.It is possible to give a topological interpretation of magnetic helicity.Using this point of view, and being aware that magnetic helicity is a conserved quantity in non-resistive flows,it is illustrated how helical systems preserve magnetic structureslonger than non-helical ones. The final part of the thesis deals directly with dynamos.It is shown how to evaluate dynamo transport coefficients with two of the most commonly used techniques, namely theimposed-field and the test-field methods.After that, it is analyzed how dynamos are affected by advectionof magnetic fields and material away from the domain in which theyoperate.It is demonstrated that the presence of an outflow, likestellar or galactic winds in real astrophysical cases,alleviates the so-calledcatastrophic quenching, that is the damping of a dynamoin highly conductive media, thus allowing the dynamo process to work better. / <p>At the time of the doctoral defence the following paper was unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper nr 5: Submitted</p>

Mercury-manganese (HgMn) stars belong to the class of chemically peculiar (CP) stars. It was recently discovered that some HgMn stars have spots of chemical elements on their surfaces. According to conventional picture of CP stars, magnetic field facilitates the formation and long term stability of chemical spots by controlling stratification of elements in stellar atmosphere. However, previous attempts to find magnetic field in HgMn stars set an upper limit on its strength at the level of about 20-100 Gauss. Observational evidence suggested that even weaker magnetic fields can be responsible for the formation of chemical spots. The main goal of our work was to verify this possibility. The search for weak magnetic fields requires the use of least-squares deconvolution (LSD) technique.  This method combines information from many spectral lines providing a mean line profile with increased signal-to-noise ratio. Up to now there was no extensive comparison of the LSD profile with real spectral lines. We showed that the LSD profile of the intensity spectrum does not behave like a real spectral line as a function of chemical composition. However, for circular polarization, LSD profile resembles the profile of a spectral line with mean atomic parameters. We performed a comprehensive search for magnetic field in 47 HgMn stars and their companions, based on high-quality spectropolarimetric data obtained with the HARPSpol polarimeter at the ESO 3.6-m telescope. With the help of LSD technique, an upper limit on the mean longitudinal magnetic field was brought down to 2-10 G for most stars. We concluded that magnetic field is not responsible for the spot formation in HgMn stars. We obtained full rotational phase coverage for the HgMn stars φ Phe and 66 Eri. This enabled us to investigate line profile variability, reconstruct surface maps of chemical elements, and perform a search for magnetic field with very high sensitivity. For φ Phe we derived surface maps of Y, Sr, Ti, Cr, and obtained an upper limit of 4 G on the field strength. We also found marginal indication of vertical stratification of Y and Ti. No magnetic field was detected in both components of 66 Eri, with an upper limit of 10-24 G. We discovered chemical spots of Y, Sr, Ba, and Ti, in the primary star. We demonstrated a relation between the binary orbit and the morphology of these spots.

Solar magnetic fields span a wide range of spatial scales from sunspots and plages to magnetic bright points. A clear understanding of the physical processes underlying the evolution of these magnetic features requires high-resolution spectropolarimetric observations of solar active regions and comparisons with synthetic data from simulations. This thesis is based on observations with the Swedish 1-m Solar Telescope (SST) and the CRISP imaging spectropolarimeter which, processed with a sophisticated image restoration technique, produce data of unsurpassed quality. The Fe I 630.25 nm line is used for all the spectropolarimetric observations. It appears likely that present telescopes resolve the fundamental scales of penumbral filaments. However, the penumbrae of sunspots are still not fully understood, with various theoretical models competing to explain their fine structure and flows. We analyze spectropolarimetric observations with a resolution close to the SST diffraction limit of 0.16 arcsecond. Using inversion techniques, we map the line-of-sight velocities and the magnetic-field configuration of dark-cored penumbral filaments. Over the past decade, sunspots and quiet sun magnetic fields have received considerable attention, with intermediate plage regions being somewhat neglected. We perform a detailed analysis of a plage region and present the first observational evidence of a small-scale granular magneto-convection pattern associated with a plage region. Magnetic bright points are believed to be formed due to magnetic field intensification caused by flux-tube collapse involving strong downflows. Although magneto-hydrodynamic (MHD) simulations agree with this view, only a few observations with adequate spatial resolution exist in support of the simulations. We present several cases of bright-point formation associated with strong downflows, which qualitatively agree with simulations and past observations. However, we find the field intensification to be transient rather than permanent. / At the time of the doctoral defense, the following paper was unpublished: Paper 3: Accepted.