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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 April 2016
The first magnetic field in a white dwarf was discovered nine years ago (Kemp et al. 1970). Since that time magnetic fields have been detected in a total of 12 single white dwarfs and four white dwarfs in close binary systems. These magnetic fields have been found both through the Zeeman splitting and shifting of spectral lines and through the continuum circular (and sometimes linear) polarisation which a field may produce in the optical flux of a star in which it occurs. The fields so far detected appear to range between 3 MG and more than 100 MG. For stars with fields less than about 40 MG, both the observed Zeeman shifts of spectral lines and the observed circular polarisation appear to be reasonably well understood. For stars with fields above this level, attempts so far to identify absorption features in the spectra and to account for the continuum polarisation have not been very successful; indeed, there is considerable dispute about the fundamental mechanism producing the continuum polarisation, especially the linear component.