English

Strong and weak dynamo regimes in Taylor-Couette flows

Fluid Dynamics 2025-08-26 v2 Earth and Planetary Astrophysics Solar and Stellar Astrophysics Plasma Physics

Abstract

We reveal a nonlinear magnetic dynamo in a Taylor-Couette flow at small magnetic Prandtl numbers Pm1Pm\leq 1, which has been previously believed to exist only at higher Pm10Pm\gtrsim 10 in this flow. The amplitude of initial perturbations, PmPm and domain aspect ratio play a key role in the onset and evolution of the dynamo. It exists in two main states -- a weak state dominated by large-scale modes and a strong, turbulent state with higher amplitude dominated by small-scale modes. These findings can be important for dynamo processes in various astrophysical objects with small PmPm.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2501.11761,
  title  = {Strong and weak dynamo regimes in Taylor-Couette flows},
  author = {A. Mishra and G. Mamatsashvili and F. Stefani},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2501.11761},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

8 pages, 8 figures, accepted for publication in Physical Review Letters

R2 v1 2026-06-28T21:11:49.922Z