Blame it on the magnetic fields: the tangled webs stars weave

Difficult to observe and harder still to characterize the role of, stellar magnetic fields have long shouldered the blame for gaps in our understanding of numerous astrophysical phenomena. From tension in determining molecular cloud collapse timescales, the mysterious mechanisms launching bipolar jets and outflows, and stellar angular momentum regulation, star formation is one of the most magnetically problematic subfields in astronomy today. The stakes, however, are high: this is the epoch of planet formation, critical to our understanding the origins of life in the universe as we understand and experience it. In this talk, I will give a broad overview of stellar magnetism and focus in on interactions between stars and their protoplanetary disks, as facilitated (or not) by young stars’ magnetic fields.