Solitary magnetostrophic Rossby waves in spherical shells

TL;DR

This paper investigates finite-amplitude hydromagnetic Rossby waves in spherical shells within the magnetostrophic regime, revealing their nonlinear evolution into solitons and potential formation of coherent eddies like anticyclones.

Contribution

It introduces a quasi-geostrophic model for slow magnetostrophic Rossby waves, deriving their asymptotic behavior and linking nonlinear wave evolution to the Korteweg-de Vries equation.

Findings

Slow mode travels opposite to hydrodynamic fast mode.

Nonlinear waves form solitons and solitary waves.

Potential connection to Earth's fluid core features.

Abstract

Finite-amplitude hydromagnetic Rossby waves in the magnetostrophic regime are studied. We consider the slow mode, which travels in the opposite direction to the hydrodynamic or fast mode, in the presence of a toroidal magnetic field and zonal flow by means of quasi-geostrophic models for thick spherical shells. The weakly-nonlinear, long waves are derived asymptotically using a reductive perturbation method. The problem at the first order is found to obey a second-order ODE, leading to a hypergeometric equation for a Malkus field and a confluent Heun equation for an electrical-wire field, and is nonsingular when the wave speed approaches the mean flow. Investigating its neutral, nonsingular eigensolutions for different basic states, we find the evolution is described by the Korteweg-de Vries equation. This implies that the nonlinear slow wave forms solitons and solitary waves. These may take the form of a coherent eddy, such as a single anticyclone. We speculate on the relation of the anti-cyclone to the asymmetric gyre seen in Earth's fluid core, and in state-of-the-art dynamo DNS.