Magnetic Fields with the Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array

Book chapter, 2015

The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) is one of the largest radio telescopes and is located at 5, 000 m altitude in the Atacama desert in Chile. Its unprecedented sensitivity at extremely high angular and spectral resolution in the (sub-)millimetre wavelength regime, allows for countless advances in astrophysics. One of the areas in which ALMA can make unique contributions, is in that of the study of astrophysical magnetic fields. ALMA is expected to map the magnetic field geometry, and in some cases strength, in a large number of star forming regions, around evolved stars and planetary nebulae, and in nearby galaxies. This chapter provides examples of the amount of improvement ALMA offers the study of magnetic fields based on the current state-of-the-art and shortly introduces new tools that will be available to analyse (sub-)millimetre polarimetric observations.