A Babcock-Leighton solar dynamo model with multi-cellular meridional circulation in advection- and diffusion-dominated regimes

TL;DR

This study explores how multi-cellular meridional circulation patterns influence Babcock-Leighton solar dynamo models, revealing their effects on cycle speed, butterfly diagram morphology, and magnetic parity in different regimes.

Contribution

It introduces the impact of complex multi-cellular circulation patterns on solar dynamo behavior, extending previous single-cell models to more realistic multi-cell configurations.

Findings

Weak high-latitude reverse cell speeds up the cycle.

Presence of a second cell in depth reverses butterfly tilt.

Four-cell circulation produces distinct behaviors in different diffusivity regimes.

Abstract

Babcock-Leighton type solar dynamo models with single-celled meridional circulation are successful in reproducing many solar cycle features. Recent observations and theoretical models of meridional circulation do not indicate a single-celled flow pattern. We examine the role of complex multi-cellular circulation patterns in a Babcock-Leighton solar dynamo in advection- and diffusion-dominated regimes. We show from simulations that presence of a weak, second, high-latitude reverse cell speeds up the cycle and slightly enhances the poleward branch in butterfly diagram, whereas the presence of a second cell in depth reverses the tilt of butterfly wing to an anti-solar type. A butterfly diagram constructed from middle of convection zone yields a solar-like pattern, but this may be difficult to realize in the Sun because of magnetic buoyancy effects. Each of the above cases behaves similarly in higher and lower magnetic diffusivity regimes. However, our dynamo with a meridional circulation containing four cells in latitude behaves distinctly differently in the two regimes, producing solar-like butterfly diagrams with fast cycles in the higher diffusivity regime, and complex branches in butterfly diagrams in the lower diffusivity regime. We also find that dynamo solutions for a four-celled pattern, two in radius and two in latitude, prefer to quickly relax to quadrupolar parity if the bottom flow-speed is strong enough, of similar order of magnitude as the surface flow-speed.