What is it about?

The paper illustrates that even a very symmetric flow of plasma with zero helicity - called the no-cosines flow - can drive a fast dynamo, i.e. that even a simple flow can amplify an initially weak magnetic field.

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Why is it important?

It turns out that in addition to a high growth rate, the dynamo saturates at a level significantly higher than normal turbulent dynamos, namely at exact equipartition, i.e. with a relatively high energy level. Visualization of the magnetic and velocity fields at saturation will help us to understand some of the aspects of the non-linear dynamo problem.

Perspectives

Visualization of magnetic and velocity fields at saturation may help us understand some aspects of non-linear dynamos. This very special dynamo with a highly symmetric flow of plasma with zero helicity drives a fast dynamo and saturates at a level higher than turbulent dynamos, namely at exact equipartition, i.e. with a high energy level.

Dr Bertil F Dorch
Syddansk Universitet

Read the Original

This page is a summary of: On the Saturation of Astrophysical Dynamos: Numerical Experiments with the No-Cosines Flow, Solar Physics, October 2004, Springer Science + Business Media,
DOI: 10.1007/s11207-005-5700-4.
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