Generation of a magnetic field by dynamo action in a turbulent flow of liquid sodium

We report the observation of dynamo action in the von Kármán sodium experiment, i.e., the generation of a magnetic field by a strongly turbulent swirling flow of liquid sodium. Both mean and fluctuating parts of the field are studied. The dynamo threshold corresponds to a magnetic Reynolds number R(m) approximately 30. A mean magnetic field of the order of 40 G is observed 30% above threshold at the flow lateral boundary. The rms fluctuations are larger than the corresponding mean value for two of the components. The scaling of the mean square magnetic field is compared to a prediction previously made for high Reynolds number flows.     

Impact of impellers on the axisymmetric magnetic mode in the VKS2 dynamo experiment

In the von Kármán Sodium 2 (VKS2) successful dynamo experiment of September 2006, the observed magnetic field showed a strong axisymmetric component, implying that nonaxisymmetric components of the flow field were acting. By modeling the induction effect of the spiraling flow between the blades of the impellers in a kinematic dynamo code, we find that the axisymmetric magnetic mode is excited. The control parameters are the magnetic Reynolds number of the mean flow, the coefficient measuring the induction effect alpha, and the type of boundary conditions. We show that using realistic values of alpha, the observed critical magnetic Reynolds number, Rm;{c} approximately 32, can be reached easily with ferromagnetic boundary conditions. We conjecture that the dynamo action achieved in this experiment may not be related to the turbulence in the bulk of the flow, but rather to the alpha effect induced by the impellers.     

Effect of electromagnetic boundary condition on dynamo actions

In this paper,based on the mean field dynamo theory,the influence of the electromagnetic boundary condition on the dynamo actions driven by the small scale turbulent flows in a cylindrical vessel is investigated by the integral equation approach.The numerical results show that the increase of the electrical conductivity or magnetic permeability of the walls of the cylindrical vessel can reduce the critical magnetic Reynolds number.Furthermore,the critical magnetic Reynolds number is more sensitive to the varying electrical conductivity of the end wall or magnetic permeability of the side wall.For the anisotropic dynamo which is the mean field model of the Karlsruhe experiment,when the relative electrical conductivity of the side wall or the relative magnetic permeability of the end wall is less than some critical value,the m=1(m is the azimuthal wave number)magnetic mode is the dominant mode,otherwise the m=0 mode predominates the excited magnetic field.Therefore,by changing the material of the walls of the cylindrical vessel,one can select the magnetic mode excited by the anisotropic dynamo.     

Transport of magnetic field by a turbulent flow of liquid sodium

We study the effect of a turbulent flow of liquid sodium generated in the von Kármán geometry, on the localized field of a magnet placed close to the frontier of the flow. We observe that the field can be transported by the flow on distances larger than its integral length scale. In the most turbulent configurations, the mean value of the field advected at large distance vanishes. However, the rms value of the fluctuations increases linearly with the magnetic Reynolds number. The advected field is strongly intermittent.     

Dynamo Effect in the Kraichnan Magnetohydrodynamic Turbulence

The existence of a dynamo effect in a simplified magnetohydrodynamic model of turbulence is considered when the magnetic Prandtl number approaches zero or infinity. The magnetic field is interacting with an incompressible Kraichnan-Kazantsev model velocity field which incorporates also a viscous cutoff scale. An approximate system of equations in the different scaling ranges can be formulated and solved, so that the solution tends to the exact one when the viscous and magnetic-diffusive cutoffs approach zero. In this approximation we are able to determine analytically the conditions for the existence of a dynamo effect and give an estimate of the dynamo growth rate. Among other things we show that in the large magnetic Prandtl number case the dynamo effect is always present. Our analytical estimates are in good agreement with previous numerical studies of the Kraichnan-Kazantsev dynamo by Vincenzi (J. Stat. Phys. 106:1073–1091, 2002).     

The Dynamo-Driven Magnetic Helicity Transport

In this paper, a new set of the evolution equations for the helicity of the mean magnetic field and the mean helicity of the fluctuating magnetic field is derived from the Maxwell equations and the generalized Ohm's law with the dynamo action. It is shown that there exist two kinds of the dynamo-driven magnetic helicity transport. One of them makes the mean magnetic field helicity transfer to the fluctuating magnetic field, yielding an anomalous loop voltage. The other makes the fluctuating magnetic field helicity transfer to the mean magnetic field, which provides a convincing evidence for the existence of the dynamo current. Therefore, the two kinds of the magnetic helicity transport describe the mutual conversion between the regular and irregular motions. The formulas of the loop voltage and the dynamo current are given. In particular, we give out the formula of the dynamo current-generated equilibrium magnetic field which provides a concrete mode of the magnetic field creation and maintenance in both astrophysical and laboratory (e.g., reversed-field pinch) plasmas.     

Intermittent magnetic field excitation by a turbulent flow of liquid sodium

The magnetic field measured in the Madison dynamo experiment shows intermittent periods of growth when an axial magnetic field is applied. The geometry of the intermittent field is consistent with the fastest-growing magnetic eigenmode predicted by kinematic dynamo theory using a laminar model of the mean flow. Though the eigenmodes of the mean flow are decaying, it is postulated that turbulent fluctuations of the velocity field change the flow geometry such that the eigenmode growth rate is temporarily positive. Therefore, it is expected that a characteristic of the onset of a turbulent dynamo is magnetic intermittency.     

Energy transfers in dynamos with small magnetic Prandtl numbers

We perform numerical simulation of dynamo with magnetic Prandtl number Pm = 0.2 on 1024³ grid, and compute the energy fluxes and the shell-to-shell energy transfers. These computations indicate that the magnetic energy growth takes place mainly due to the energy transfers from large-scale velocity field to large-scale magnetic field and that the magnetic energy flux is forward. The steady-state magnetic energy is much smaller than the kinetic energy, rather than equipartition; this is because the magnetic Reynolds number is near the dynamo transition regime. We also contrast our results with those for dynamo with Pm = 20 and decaying dynamo.     

Magnetic dynamo action at low magnetic Prandtl numbers

Amplification of magnetic field due to kinematic turbulent dynamo action is studied in the regime of small magnetic Prandtl numbers. Such a regime is relevant for planets and stars interiors, as well as for liquid-metal laboratory experiments. A comprehensive analysis based on the Kazantsev-Kraichnan model is reported, which establishes the dynamo threshold and the dynamo growth rates for varying kinetic helicity of turbulent fluctuations. It is proposed that in contrast with the case of large magnetic Prandtl numbers, the kinematic dynamo action at small magnetic Prandtl numbers is significantly affected by kinetic helicity, and it can be made quite efficient with an appropriate choice of the helicity spectrum.     

Metric-torsion decay of non-adiabatic chiral helical magnetic fields against chiral dynamo action in bouncing cosmological models

Metric-torsion effects on chiral massless fermions are investigated in the realm of the adiabatic amplification of cosmological magnetic fields (CMFs) in a general relativistic framework and in the framework of Einstein–Cartan (EC) bouncing cosmologies. In GR the chiral effect is proportional to the Hubble factor and the solution of the dynamo equation leads to an adiabatic magnetic field, while in Einstein–Cartan bouncing cosmology we have non-adiabatic magnetic fields where the breaking of adiabaticity is given by a torsion term. Using a EWPT magnetic field of the order of \(B_{\text {seed}}\sim {10^{24}}\) G at 5 pc scale, we obtain a CMF in EC of the order of \(10^{-10}\) G, which is still able to seed a galactic dynamo which amplifies this field up to galactic magnetic fields of four orders of magnitude, which is a mild dynamo. In the case of massive chiral fermions it is shown that torsion actually attenuated the convective dynamo term in the dynamo equation obtained from the QED of an electron–positron pair \(e^{-}e^{+}\). Chiral effects on general relativity may lead to strong magnetic fields of the order of \(\sim {10^{18}}\) G at the early universe resulting from pure metric effects. Strong magnetic fields of the order of \(B_{\text {metric}-\text {torsion}}\sim {10^{8}}\) G may be obtained from very strong seed fields. At 1 Mpc scale of the present universe a galactic dynamo seed of the order of \(10^{-19}\) G is found. It is shown in this paper that chiral dynamo effects in the expanded universe can be obtained if one takes into account the speed of the cosmic plasma.     

Magnetic field saturation in the Riga dynamo experiment

After the dynamo experiment in November 1999 [A. Gailitis et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 84, 4365 (2000)] had shown magnetic field self-excitation in a spiraling liquid metal flow, in a second series of experiments emphasis was placed on the magnetic field saturation regime as the next principal step in the dynamo process. The dependence of the strength of the magnetic field on the rotation rate is studied. Various features of the saturated magnetic field are outlined and possible saturation mechanisms are discussed.     

Impact of nonlinearity on a homopolar oscillating-disc dynamo

A numerical method is developed to investigate the effect of the nonlinear factors on a homopolar oscillating-disc dynamo. Our results show that all the nonlinear factors of the oscillating-disc dynamo have no significant effect on the kinematic regime of the disc dynamo. But as the magnetic field grows larger, the nonlinear factors begin to take effect. The role of the nonlinear factor involving the cube of the magnetic flux is to make the dynamo magnetic flux tend to an oscillating solution with finite amplitude. For the case that the mean rotation rate vanishes the nonlinear factor involving the magnetic flux rate can only affect the manner of the magnetic flux tending to infinity; for another case that the disc rotation rate takes a strongly subcritical value, it may have two kinds of effects just mentioned above on the disc dynamo and its specific effect is dependent on the values of the amplitude and frequency of the oscillatory disc rotation rate.     

Amplification of mean magnetic field and magnetic helicity production in hot lepton plasma of early universe

We argue that the magnetic helicity conservation is violated at the lepton stage in the evolution of early Universe owing to the parity violation in the Standard Model of electroweak interactions. As a result, a cosmological magnetic field which can be a seed for the galactic dynamo obtains from the beginning a substantial magnetic helicity which has to be taken into account in the magnetic helicity balance at the later stage of galactic dynamo. The particle physics mechanism suggested in our works depends neither on helicity of matter turbulence with plasma vortices resulting in the standard α effect in dynamo theory nor on general rotation. The mechanism can result in a self-exitation of an (almost) uniform cosmological magnetic field. The text was submitted by the authors in English.     

Investigation of the helicity of magnetic fields on the Sun within the Parker dynamo model

Construction of the butterfly diagrams for the magnetic helicity in several approximations of a Parker dynamo has been carried out. The diagrams are constructed both for the cases of efficient generation of the magnetic field (large dynamo numbers) and for the weak generation (a small dynamo number). The corresponding asymptotic solution to the solar dynamo is used in the first case. The butterfly diagrams for different values of the meridional circulation were studied due to this solution. The butterfly diagrams are constructed and based on the few-mode approximation, which is valid for moderate dynamo numbers. The issue of which butterfly diagram features are common in all these approximations and can be compared with observational data is discussed.     

Homopolar oscillating-disc dynamo driven by parametric resonance

We use a simple model of Bullard-type disc dynamo, in which the disc rotation rate is subject to harmonic oscillations, to analyze the generation of magnetic field by the parametric resonance mechanism. The problem is governed by a damped Mathieu equation. The Floquet exponents, which define the magnetic field growth rates, are calculated depending on the amplitude and frequency of the oscillations. Firstly, we show that the dynamo can be excited at significantly subcritical disc rotation rate when the latter is subject to harmonic oscillations with a certain frequency. Secondly, at supercritical mean rotation rates, the dynamo can also be suppressed but only in narrow frequency bands and at sufficiently large oscillation amplitudes.     

Subcritical dynamo bifurcation in the Taylor-Green flow

We report direct numerical simulations of dynamo generation for flow generated using a Taylor-Green forcing. We find that the bifurcation is subcritical and show its bifurcation diagram. We connect the associated hysteretic behavior with hydrodynamics changes induced by the action of the Lorentz force. We show the geometry of the dynamo magnetic field and discuss how the dynamo transition can be induced when an external field is applied to the flow.     

A Toroidal Magnetic Field Theorem

In the framework of magnetohydrodynamics the kinematic dynamo problem in a spherical fluid volume as well as in a plane layer is considered. On the premises of a purely toroidal magnetic field a nonlinear evolution equation for the toroidal scalar is derived. In this equation the flow field is constrained in such a way that no poloidal magnetic field can arise, but is otherwise arbitrary; the magnetic diffusivity is assumed to be spherically (horizontally, resp.) symmetric. Solutions of this problem are of particular interest since the magnetic field is confined to the fluid volume and therefore invisible to an external observer. It is proved in this paper that the maximum norm of smooth solutions of this equation decays exponentially fast to zero. Thus, dynamo solutions, i.e. nondecaying solutions, of this type do not exist.     

Dynamo quenching due to shear flow

We provide a theory of dynamo (alpha effect) and momentum transport in three-dimensional magnetohydrodynamics. For the first time, we show that the alpha effect is reduced by the shear even in the absence of magnetic field. The alpha effect is further suppressed by magnetic fields well below equipartition (with the large-scale flow) with different scalings depending on the relative strength of shear and magnetic field. The turbulent viscosity is also found to be significantly reduced by shear and magnetic fields, with positive value. These results suggest a crucial effect of shear and magnetic field on dynamo quenching and momentum transport reduction, with important implications for laboratory and astrophysical plasmas, in particular, for the dynamics of the Sun.