About ten to twenty percent of white dwarfs are strongly magnetized, and the origin of the magnetic field is a mystery. We have taken a big step toward solving this mystery with the discovery that more than half of stars with initial masses between five and seven times that of the Sun form magnetic white dwarfs through single-star evolution. This is the first evidence that neither mergers or mass transfer are needed to build the strong fields on white dwarfs. Check out our ApJ paper (10.3847/2041-8213/abb5f7)!
Stellar and High-Energy Astrophysics at UBC