Related papers: Solar Dynamo and Toroidal Field Instabilities
Arguments for and against the widely accepted picture of a solar dynamo being seated in the tachocline are reviewed and alternative ideas concerning dynamos operating in the bulk of the convection zone, or perhaps even in the near-surface…
We examine the MHD instabilities arising in the radiation zone of a differentially rotating star, in which a poloidal field of fossil origin is sheared into a toroidal field. We focus on the non-axisymmetric instability that affects the…
The tachocline is believed to be the region where the solar dynamo operates. With over a solar cycle's worth of data available from the MDI and GONG instruments, we are in a position to investigate not merely the average structure of the…
Torsional oscillations represent bands of fast and slow zonal flows around the Sun, which extend deep into the convection zone and migrate during solar cycles towards the equator following the sunspot butterfly diagram. Analysis of…
First results from a high-resolution three-dimensional nonlinear numerical study of the kink oscillation are presented. We show in detail the development of a shear instability in an untwisted line-tied magnetic flux tube. The instability…
Recent analysis of the helioseismic observations indicate that the previously observed surface torsional oscillations extend significantly downwards into the solar convection zone. In an attempt to understand these oscillations, we study…
The leading theoretical paradigm for the Sun's magnetic cycle is an $\alpha\omega$-dynamo process, in which a combination of differential rotation and turbulent, helical flows produces a large-scale magnetic field that reverses every 11…
The questions of how strong magnetic fields can be stored in rotating stellar radiative zones without being subjected to pinch-type instabilities and how much radial mixing is produced if the fields are unstable are addressed. Linear…
Stability of toroidal magnetic field in a stellar radiation zone is considered for the cases of uniform and differential rotation. In the rigidly rotating radiative core shortly below the tachocline, the critical magnetic field for…
The spatio-temporal relationship between the sign of the observed radial component of the magnetic field at the solar surface and the sign of the toroidal field as inferred from Hale's polarity rules for sunspots is usually interpreted as…
Observations show that solar activity is distributed non-axisymmetrically, concentrating at "preferred longitudes". This indicates the important role of non-axisymmetric magnetic fields in the origin of solar activity. We investigate the…
The correlation between geomagnetic activity and the sunspot number in the 11-year solar cycle exhibits long-term variations due to the varying time lag between the sunspot-related and non-sunspot related geomagnetic activity, and the…
Solar active regions, produced by the emergence of tubes of strong magnetic field in the photosphere, are restricted to within 35 degrees of the solar equator. The nature of the dynamo processes that create and renew these fields, and are…
Circulation-dominated solar dynamo models, which employ a helioseismic rotation profile and a fixed meridional flow, give a good approximation to the large scale solar magnetic phenomena, such as the 11-year cycle or the so called Hale's…
The surface layers of the Sun are strongly stratified. In the presence of turbulence with a weak mean magnetic field, a large-scale instability resulting in the formation of non-uniform magnetic structures, can be excited over the scale of…
We explore a two-dimensional kinematic solar dynamo model in a full sphere, based on the helioseismically determined solar rotation profile and with an $\alpha$ effect concentrated near the solar surface, which captures the…
We explore effects of random non-axisymmetric perturbations of kinetic helicity (the $\alpha$ effect) and diffusive decay of bipolar magnetic regions on generation and evolution of large-scale non-axisymmetric magnetic fields on the Sun.…
The flux transport dynamo, in which the poloidal magnetic field is generated by the Babcock--Leighton mechanism and the meridional circulation plays a crucial role, has emerged as an attractive model for the solar cycle. Based on…
In contrast to the situation with the geodynamo, no breakthrough has been made in the solar dynamo problem for decades. Since the appearance of mean-field electrodynamics in the 1960's, the only really significant advance was in the field…
A striking feature of the solar cycle is that at the beginning, sunspots appear around mid-latitudes, and over time the latitudes of emergences migrate towards the equator. The maximum level of activity varies from cycle to cycle. For…