6 research outputs found
High Magnetic Shear Gain in a Liquid Sodium Stable Couette Flow Experiment; A Prelude to an alpha-Omega Dynamo
The -phase of the liquid sodium - dynamo experiment
at NMIMT in cooperation with LANL has successfully demonstrated the production
of a high toroidal field, from the radial
component of an applied poloidal magnetic field, . This enhanced toroidal
field is produced by rotational shear in stable Couette flow within liquid
sodium at . The small turbulence in stable Taylor-Couette flow
is caused by Ekman flow where . This high
-gain in low turbulence flow contrasts with a smaller -gain in
higher turbulence, Helmholtz-unstable shear flows. This result supports the
ansatz that large scale astrophysical magnetic fields are created within
semi-coherent large scale motions in which turbulence plays only a smaller
diffusive role that enables magnetic flux linkage.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures, submitted PRL revised version: add one author,
minor typo'