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Abstract The Faraday rotation effect, quantified by the rotation measure (RM), is a powerful probe of the large-scale magnetization of the Universe—tracing magnetic fields not only on galaxy and galaxy cluster scales but also in the intergalactic medium (IGM; referred to as RM_IGM). The redshift dependence of the latter has extensively been explored with observations. It has also been shown that this relation can help to distinguish between different large-scale magnetization scenarios. We study the evolution of this RM_IGMfor different primordial magnetogenesis scenarios to search for the imprints of primordial magnetic fields (PMFs; magnetic fields originating in the early Universe) on the redshift-dependence of RM_IGM. We use cosmological magnetohydrodynamic simulations for evolving PMFs during large-scale structure formation, coupled with the light-cone analysis to produce a realistic statistical sample of mock RM_IGMimages. We study the predicted behavior for the cosmic evolution of RM_IGMfor different correlation lengths of PMFs, and provide fitting functions for their dependence on redshifts. We compare these mock RM trends with the recent analysis of the the LOw-Frequency ARray RM Grid and find that large-scale-correlated PMFs should have (comoving) strengths ≲0.75 nG, if they originated during inflation with the scale-invariant spectrum and (comoving) correlation length of ∼19h⁻¹cMpc or ≲30 nG if they originated during phase-transition epochs with the comoving correlation length of ∼1h⁻¹cMpc. Our findings agree with previous observations and confirm the results of semi-analytical studies, showing that upper limits on the PMF strength decrease as their coherence scales increase. 

The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) will answer fundamental questions about the origin, evolution, properties, and influence of magnetic fields throughout the Universe. Magnetic fields can illuminate and influence phenomena as diverse as star formation, galactic dynamics, fast radio bursts, active galactic nuclei, large-scale structure, and dark matter annihilation. Preparations for the SKA are swiftly continuing worldwide, and the community is making tremendous observational progress in the field of cosmic magnetism using data from a powerful international suite of SKA pathfinder and precursor telescopes. In this contribution, we revisit community plans for magnetism research using the SKA, in light of these recent rapid developments. We focus in particular on the impact that new radio telescope instrumentation is generating, thus advancing our understanding of key SKA magnetism science areas, as well as the new techniques that are required for processing and interpreting the data. We discuss these recent developments in the context of the ultimate scientific goals for the SKA era.