Liquid metal experiments on hydromagnetic dynamos and magnetically triggered flow instabilities

The magnetic fields of planets, stars and galaxies are generated by self-excitation in moving electrically conducting fluids. Magnetic fields play, in turn, an active role in cosmic structure formation by destabilizing rotational flows that would be otherwise hydrodynamically stable. For a long time, both effects had been the subject of purely theoretical investigations. The lecture gives an overview about the recent liquid metal experiments on dynamo action and magnetically triggered instabilities. An outlook on future experiments, including a precession driven dynamo and a large-scale Tayler-Couette experiment to be set-up in the framework of the DRESDYN project, is also given.