The measurement of magnetic fields in stars is generally difficult unless the field strengths reach very high values that can be detected from polarizations of their light. The Principal Investigator (PI) and collaborators have built a portable imaging CCD spectropolarimeter that permits them to detect even moderate- strength magnetic fields on faint white dwarf stars on large telescopes located in both hemispheres. The PI will undertake a survey of magnetic fields in some 200 white dwarfs down to a limiting strength of 10-30 kilogauss. These results should permit astronomers to project these magnetic strengths back to times when these stars constituted a normal population of unevolved ("main sequence") stars. Thus, in this way we may be able to estimate directly the strengths of magnetic fields otherwise hidden below the surfaces of main sequence stars. The PI will also continue a program to observe white dwarfs in binaries that are in the process of resynchronizing after "nova outbursts" in them some decades ago. Finally, the PI will observe polarization in "Broad Absorption Line" Active Galactic Nuclei of external galaxies. These observations are expected to help us understand the mechanisms linking quasars and normal galaxies such as the Milky way.
