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Abstract Employing the standard solar interior model as input we construct a dynamically-consistent nonlinear dynamo model that takes into account the detailed description of the Λ - effect, turbulent pumping, magnetic helicity balance, and magnetic feedback on the differential rotation and meridional circulation. The background mean-field hydrodynamic model of the solar convection zone accounts the solar-like angular velocity profile and the double-cell meridional circulation. We investigate an impact of the nonlinear magnetic field generation effects on the long-term variability and properties of the magnetic cycle. The nonlinear dynamo solutions are studied in the wide interval of the α effect parameter from a slightly subcritical to supercritical values. It is found that the magnetic cycle period decreases with the increasing cycle's magnitude. The periodic long-term variations of the magnetic cycle are excited in case of the overcritical α effect. These variations result from the hemispheric magnetic helicity exchange. It depends on the magnetic diffusivity parameter and the magnetic helicity production rate. The large-scale magnetic activity modifies the distribution of the differential rotation and meridional circulation inside convection zone. It is found that the magnetic feedback on the global flow affects the properties of the long-term magnetic cycles. We confront our findings with solar and stellar magnetic activity observations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Convective instabilities of viscous conducting fluids play an important role in many physical phenomena in planets and stars. Astrophysical magnetic fields are usually explained in a framework of the dynamo theory, describing transformation of the kinetic energy of a flow into magnetic energy. Therefore, an analysis of purely convective states and their bifurcations, as a control parameter is changed, provides a detailed framework for the subsequent study of magnetic field generation by these states. In this paper, three-dimensional Rayleigh–Bénard convection in the absence of magnetic field is investigated numerically for various values of the Rayleigh number and a fixed Prandtl number (corresponding to its value for convection in the Earth’s outer core). On increasing the Rayleigh number, we identified periodic, quasiperiodic, chaotic and hyperchaotic attractors of the convective system and their bifurcations, thereby describing a route to spatiotemporal chaos in the convective system. The occurrence of on–off intermittency in the energy time series is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Mars Global Surveyor measurements revealed that the Martian crust is strongly magnetized in the southern hemisphere while the northern hemisphere is virtually void of magnetization. Two possible reasons have been suggested for this dichotomy: a once more or less homogeneously magnetization may have been destroyed in the northern hemisphere by, for example, resurfacing or impacts. The alternative theory we further explore here assumes that the dynamo itself produced a hemispherical field (Stanley et al., 2008; Amit et al., 2011). We use numerical dynamo simulations to study under which conditions a spatial variation of the heat flux through the core–mantle boundary (CMB) may yield a strongly hemispherical surface field. We assume that the early Martian dynamo was exclusively driven by secular cooling and we mostly concentrate on a cosine CMB heat flux pattern with a minimum at the north pole, possibly caused by the impacts responsible for the northern lowlands. This pattern consistently triggers a convective mode which is dominated by equatorially anti-symmetric and axisymmetric (EAA, Landeau and Aubert, 2011) thermal winds. Convective up- and down-wellings and thus radial magnetic field production then tend to concentrate in the southern hemisphere which is still cooled efficiently while the northern hemisphere remains hot. The dynamo changes from an for a homogeneous CMB heat flux to an -type in the hemispherical configuration. These dynamos reverse on time scales of about 10kyrs. This too fast to allow for the more or less unidirectional magnetization of thick crustal layer required to explain the strong magnetization in the southern hemisphere. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: In this work we use a low order dynamo model and study under which conditions can it reproduce solar grand minima. We begin by building the phase space of a proxy for the toroidal component of the solar magnetic field and we develop a model, derived from mean field dynamo theory, that gives the time evolution of the toroidal field. This model is characterized by a non-linear oscillator whose coefficients retain most of the physics behind dynamo theory. In the derivation of the model we also include stochastic oscillations in the effect. We found evidences that stochastic fluctuations in effect can trigger grand minima episodes in this model under some considerations. We also explore other ways of creating grand minima by looking into the physical mechanisms that compose the coefficients of the oscillator. The balance between meridional circulation and magnetic diffusivity as well as the field intensification by buoyancy driven instabilities, might have a crucial role in inducing grand minima. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Campanelli et al. (2009) have recently shown that electromagnetic fluctuations in Lorentz violation theories Colladay and Kostelecky (1998) along differential rotation may induce galactic dynamo amplification of magnetic fields from primordial seeds. In this Letter, instead of using the Maxwell–Chern–Simmons–Lagrangian used in their paper, one adopts the Lagrangean of the type , where represent the torsion modes, without dynamical curvature. This so-called Minkowski–Cartan spacetime torsion modes, allows us to handle QED vacuum in any Ricci scalar electrodynamics Lagrangean. It is shown that axial-torsion modes electrodynamics allows us to obtain a slow decay of magnetic fields. Thus primordial seed fields are amplified from differential rotation and protogalaxy turbulence as galactic dynamo action. This is mainly due to the fact that the collapse of the protogalaxy induces a strong suppression of the magnetic field decay. Magnetic field anisotropies are also considered. To resume, photon-torsion axial coupling in the quantum electrodynamics (QED) framework in Riemann flat contortioned spacetime may induce galactic dynamos. Fourier space transformation are used to compute electrodynamic equations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: A recent dynamo model for Mercury assumes that the upper part of the planet''s fluid core is thermally stably stratified because the temperature gradient at the core–mantle boundary is subadiabatic. Vigorous convection driven by a superadiabatic temperature gradient at the boundary of a growing solid inner core and by the associated release of light constituents takes place in a deep sub-layer and powers a dynamo. These models have been successful at explaining the observed weak global magnetic field at Mercury''s surface. They have been based on the concept of codensity, which combines thermal and compositional sources of buoyancy into a single variable by assuming the same diffusivity for both components. Actual diffusivities in planetary cores differ by a large factor. To overcome the limitation of the codensity model, we solve two separate transport equations with different diffusivities in a double diffusive dynamo model for Mercury. When temperature and composition contribute comparable amounts to the buoyancy force, we find significant differences to the codensity model. In the double diffusive case convection penetrates the upper layer with a net stable density stratification in the form of finger convection. Compared to the codensity model, this enhances the poloidal magnetic field in the nominally stable layer and outside the core, where it becomes too strong compared to observation. Intense azimuthal flow in the stable layer generates a strong axisymmetric toroidal field. We find in double diffusive models a surface magnetic field of the observed strength when compositional buoyancy plays an inferior role for driving the dynamo, which is the case when the sulphur concentration in Mercury''s core is only a fraction of a percent. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The current understanding of astrophysical magnetic fields is reviewed, focusing on their generation and maintenance by turbulence. In the astrophysical context this generation is usually explained by a self-excited dynamo, which involves flows that can amplify a weak ‘seed’ magnetic field exponentially fast. Particular emphasis is placed on the nonlinear saturation of the dynamo. Analytic and numerical results are discussed both for small scale dynamos, which are completely isotropic, and for large scale dynamos, where some form of parity breaking is crucial. Central to the discussion of large scale dynamos is the so-called alpha effect which explains the generation of a mean field if the turbulence lacks mirror symmetry, i.e. if the flow has kinetic helicity. Large scale dynamos produce small scale helical fields as a waste product that quench the large scale dynamo and hence the alpha effect. With this in mind, the microscopic theory of the alpha effect is revisited in full detail and recent results for the loss of helical magnetic fields are reviewed. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Measurements of the general magnetic field of the Sun seen as a star were performed over last 45 years by the CrAO and five other observatories (1968–2012, nearly 23 thousand daily strengths B ). Analysis of the B time series showed that the most substantial long-term period of the field variation is the Hale’s cycle 22 years, which cannot be explained by dynamo theory. It reveals a saw-edged profile, indicating perhaps a cosmic origin of the cycle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]