Why coronal mass ejections are necessary for the dynamo

Large scale dynamo-generated fields are a combination of interlocked poloidal and toroidal fields. Such fields possess magnetic helicity that needs to be regenerated and destroyed during each cycle. A number of numerical experiments now suggests that stars may do this by shedding magnetic helicity. In addition to plain bulk motions, a favorite mechanism involves magnetic helicity flux along lines of constant rotation. We also know that the sun does shed the required amount of magnetic helicity mostly in the form of coronal mass ejections. Solar-like stars without cycles do not face such strong constraints imposed by magnetic helicity evolution and may not display coronal activity to that same extent. I discuss the evidence leading to this line of argument. In particular, I discuss simulations showing the generation of strong mean toroidal fields provided the outer boundary condition is left open so as to allow magnetic helicity to escape. Control experiments with closed boundaries do not produce strong mean fields.Comment: 2 pages, 2 figures, to appear in Highlights of Astronomy, ed. K. G. Strassmeier & A. Kosovichev, Astron. Soc. Pac. Conf. Se

The dual role of shear in large-scale dynamos

The role of shear in alleviating catastrophic quenching by shedding small-scale magnetic helicity through fluxes along contours of constant shear is discussed. The level of quenching of the dynamo effect depends on the quenched value of the turbulent magnetic diffusivity. Earlier estimates that might have suffered from the force-free degeneracy of Beltrami fields are now confirmed for shear flows where this degeneracy is lifted. For a dynamo that is saturated near equipartition field strength those estimates result in a 5-fold decrease of the magnetic diffusivity as the magnetic Reynolds number based on the wavenumber of the energy-carrying eddies is increased from 2 to 600. Finally, the role of shear in driving turbulence and large-scale fields by the magneto-rotational instability is emphasized. New simulations are presented and the 3pi/4 phase shift between poloidal and toroidal fields is confirmed. It is suggested that this phase shift might be a useful diagnostic tool in identifying mean-field dynamo action in simulations and to distinguish this from other scenarios invoking magnetic buoyancy as a means to explain migration away from the midplane.Comment: 7 pages, 10 figures, proceedings of the workshop on MHD Laboratory Experiments for Geophysics and Astrophysic

New mechanism of generation of large-scale magnetic field in a sheared turbulent plasma

A review of recent studies on a new mechanism of generation of large-scale magnetic field in a sheared turbulent plasma is presented. This mechanism is associated with the shear-current effect which is related to the W x J-term in the mean electromotive force. This effect causes the generation of the large-scale magnetic field even in a nonrotating and nonhelical homogeneous sheared turbulent convection whereby the alpha effect vanishes. It is found that turbulent convection promotes the shear-current dynamo instability, i.e., the heat flux causes positive contribution to the shear-current effect. However, there is no dynamo action due to the shear-current effect for small hydrodynamic and magnetic Reynolds numbers even in a turbulent convection, if the spatial scaling for the turbulent correlation time is k^{-2}, where k is the small-scale wave number. We discuss here also the nonlinear mean-field dynamo due to the shear-current effect and take into account the transport of magnetic helicity as a dynamical nonlinearity. The magnetic helicity flux strongly affects the magnetic field dynamics in the nonlinear stage of the dynamo action. When the magnetic helicity flux is not small, the saturated level of the mean magnetic field is of the order of the equipartition field determined by the turbulent kinetic energy. The obtained results are important for elucidation of origin of the large-scale magnetic fields in astrophysical and cosmic sheared turbulent plasma.Comment: 7 pages, Planetory and Space Science, in pres

Vorticity from irrotationally forced flow

In the interstellar medium the turbulence is believed to be forced mostly through supernova explosions. In a first approximation these flows can be written as a gradient of a potential being thus devoid of vorticity. There are several mechanisms that could lead to vorticity generation, like viscosity and baroclinic terms, rotation, shear and magnetic fields, but it is not clear how effective they are, neither is it clear whether the vorticity is essential in determining the turbulent diffusion acting in the ISM. Here we present a study of the role of rotation, shear and baroclinicity in the generation of vorticity in the ISM.Comment: 2 pages, 1 figure, to be published in Proceedings of IAU Symp. 271, Astrophysical Dynamics: from Stars to Galaxies, ed. N. Brummell and A.S. Brun, CU

Simulations of the anisotropic kinetic and magnetic alpha effects

The validity of a closure called the minimal tau approximation (MTA), is tested in the context of dynamo theory, wherein triple correlations are assumed to provide relaxation of the turbulent electromotive force. Under MTA, the alpha effect in mean field dynamo theory becomes proportional to a relaxation time scale multiplied by the difference between kinetic and current helicities. It is shown that the value of the relaxation time is positive and, in units of the turnover time at the forcing wavenumber, it is of the order of unity. It is quenched by the magnetic field -- roughly independently of the magnetic Reynolds number. However, this independence becomes uncertain at large magnetic Reynolds number. Kinetic and current helicities are shown to be dominated by large scale properties of the flow.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figures, accepted by Astron. Nach

Magnetic helicity flux in the presence of shear

Magnetic helicity has risen to be a major player in dynamo theory, with the helicity of the small-scale field being linked to the dynamo saturation process for the large-scale field. It is a nearly conserved quantity, which allows its evolution equation to be written in terms of production and flux terms. The flux term can be decomposed in a variety of fashions. One particular contribution that has been expected to play a significant role in dynamos in the presence of mean shear was isolated by Vishniac & Cho (2001, ApJ 550, 752). Magnetic helicity fluxes are explicitly gauge dependent however, and the correlations that have come to be called the Vishniac-Cho flux were determined in the Coulomb gauge, which turns out to be fraught with complications in shearing systems. While the fluxes of small-scale helicity are explicitly gauge dependent, their divergences can be gauge independent. We use this property to investigate magnetic helicity fluxes of small-scale field through direct numerical simulations in a shearing-box system and find that in a numerically usable gauge the divergence of the small-scale helicity flux vanishes, while the divergence of the Vishniac-Cho flux remains finite. We attribute this seeming contradiction to the existence of horizontal fluxes of small-scale magnetic helicity with finite divergences even in our shearing-periodic domain.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures, Accepted, Ap

Rosenberg's Reconstruction Theorem (after Gabber)

Alexander L. Rosenberg has constructed a spectrum for abelian categories which is able to reconstruct a quasi-separated scheme from its abelian category of quasi-coherent sheaves. In this note we present a detailed proof of this result which is due to Ofer Gabber.Comment: 18 pages; revised Thm 5.

Lagrangian coherent structures in nonlinear dynamos

Turbulence and chaos play a fundamental role in stellar convective zones through the transportof particles, energy and momentum, and in fast dynamos, through the stretching, twisting and folding of magnetic flux tubes. A particularly revealing way to describe turbulent motions is through the analysis of Lagrangian coherent structures (LCS), which are material lines or surfaces that act as transport barriers in the fluid. We report the detection of Lagrangian coherent structures in helical MHD dynamo simulations with scale separation. In an ABC--flow, two dynamo regimes, a propagating coherent mean--field regime and an intermittent regime, are identified as the magnetic diffusivity is varied. The sharp contrast between the chaotic tangle of attracting and repelling LCS in both regimes permits a unique analysis of the impact of the magnetic field on the velocity field. In a second example, LCS reveal the link between the level of chaotic mixing of the velocity field and the saturation of a large--scale dynamo when the magnetic field exceeds the equipartition value