Generation of a symmetric magnetic field by thermal convection in a plane rotating layer

TL;DR

This paper numerically investigates novel dynamo regimes generated by thermal convection in a rotating layer of conducting fluid, revealing three distinct types of magnetic field behaviors including steady, periodic, and chaotic regimes.

Contribution

It introduces three new types of dynamos in a rotating convective layer, expanding understanding of magnetic field generation mechanisms in such systems.

Findings

Identified steady and periodic symmetric dynamos.

Discovered magnetic fields concentrated inside the convective layer.

Observed chaotic heteroclinic dynamo behavior with excursions between regimes.

Abstract

We investigate numerically magnetic field generation by thermal convection with square periodicity cells in a rotating horizontal layer of electrically-conducting fluid with stress-free electrically perfectly conducting boundaries for Rayleigh numbers in the interval 5100\le R\le 5800. Dynamos of three kinds, apparently not encountered before, are presented: 1) Steady and time-periodic regimes, where the flow and magnetic field are symmetric about a vertical axis. In regimes with this symmetry, the global alpha-effect is insignificant, and the complex structure of the system of amplitude equations controlling weakly nonlinear stability of the system to perturbations with large spatial and temporal scales suggests that the perturbations are likely to exhibit uncommon complex patterns of behaviour, to be studied in the future work. 2) Periodic in time regimes, where magnetic field is always concentrated in the interior of the convective layer, in contrast to the behaviour first observed by St Pierre (1993) and often perceived as generic for electrically infinitely conducting boundaries. 3) A dynamo exhibiting chaotic behaviour of heteroclinic nature, where a sample trajectory enjoys excursions between a periodic magnetohydrodynamic regime and rolls. The rolls are amagnetic, but generate magnetic field kinematically. As a result, magnetic energy falls off almost to zero, while the rolls are approached.