On the Saturation of Astrophysical Dynamos: Numerical Experiments with the No-Cosines Flow

Dorch, S. B. F.; Archontis, V.
Referencia bibliográfica

Solar Physics, Volume 224, Issue 1-2, pp. 171-178

Fecha de publicación:
10
2004
Revista
Número de autores
2
Número de autores del IAC
1
Número de citas
14
Número de citas referidas
13
Descripción
In the context of astrophysical dynamos we illustrate that the no-cosines flow, with zero mean helicity, can drive fast dynamo action and we study the dynamo’s mode of operation during both the linear and non-linear saturation regimes. It turns out that in addition to a high growth rate in the linear regime, the dynamo saturates at a level significantly higher than normal turbulent dynamos, namely at exact equipartition when the magnetic Prandtl number Prm˜ 1. Visualization of the magnetic and velocity fields at saturation will help us to understand some of the aspects of the non-linear dynamo problem.