Related papers: Field linkage and magnetic helicity density
Helicity is a fundamental property of a magnetic field but to date it has only been possible to observe its evolution in one star - the Sun. In this paper we provide a simple technique for mapping the large-scale helicity density across the…
Magnetic helicity is a fundamental constraint in both ideal and resistive magnetohydrodynamics. Measurements of magnetic helicity density on the Sun and other stars are used to interpret the internal behaviour of the dynamo generating the…
Magnetic fields of laboratory, planetary, stellar, and galactic plasmas commonly exhibit significant order on large temporal or spatial scales compared to the otherwise random motions within the hosting system. Such ordered fields can be…
We search for observational signatures of magnetic helicity in data from all-sky radio polarization surveys of the Milky Way Galaxy. Such a detection would help confirm the dynamo origin of the field and may provide new observational…
Context. Magnetic helicity is an important quantity in studies of magnetized plasmas as it provides a measure of the geometrical complexity of the magnetic field in a given volume. A more detailed description of the spatial distribution of…
Magnetic fields correlated on kiloparsec scales are seen in spiral galaxies. Their origin could be due to amplification of a small seed field by a turbulent galactic dynamo. We review the current status of the galactic dynamo, especially…
The energy of the stochastic magnetic field is bounded from below by a topological quantity expressing the degree of linkage of the field lines. When the bound is saturated one can assume that the storage of a certain magnetic energy…
Helicity and \alpha effect driven by the nonaxisymmetric Tayler instability of toroidal magnetic fields in stellar radiation zones are computed. In the linear approximation a purely toroidal field always excites pairs of modes with…
In the absence of an active dynamo, purely poloidal magnetic field configurations are unstable to large-scale dynamical perturbations, and decay via reconnection on an Alfvenic timescale. Nevertheless, a number of classes of dynamo-free…
Magnetic helicity is approximately conserved in resistive MHD models. It quantifies the entanglement of the magnetic field within the plasma. The transport and removal of helicity is crucial in both the dynamo in the solar interior and…
Some common properties of helical magnetic fields in decaying and driven turbulence are discussed. These include mainly the inverse cascade that produces fields on progressively larger scales. Magnetic helicity also restricts the evolution…
The theory of large scale dynamos is reviewed with particular emphasis on the magnetic helicity constraint in the presence of closed and open boundaries. In the presence of closed or periodic boundaries, helical dynamos respond to the…
The magnetic structure in the Galactic disk, the Galactic center and the Galactic halo can be delineated more clearly than ever before. In the Galactic disk, the magnetic structure has been revealed by starlight polarization within 2 or 3…
Magnetic helicity is an invariant of ideal magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) that encodes information on the topology of magnetic field lines. It has long been appreciated that magnetic topology is an important constraint for the evolution of…
Spectropolarimetric observations have been used to map stellar magnetic fields, many of which display strong bands of azimuthal fields that are toroidal. A number of explanations have been proposed to explain how such fields might be…
Methods: Observing the large pc-scale Stokes I mm dust continuum emission with the IRAM 30m telescope and the intermediate-scale (<0.1pc) polarized submm dust emission with the Submillimeter Array toward a sample of 20 high-mass…
Context. Magnetic fields are key to understand galaxy evolution, regulating stellar feedback and star formation in galaxies. Aims. We probe the origin of magnetic fields in late-type galaxies, measuring magnetic field strengths, exploring…
Starlight that becomes linearly polarized by magnetically aligned dust grains provides a viable diagnostic of the interstellar magnetic field (ISMF). A survey is underway to map the local ISMF using data collected at eight observatories in…
We compute magnetic helicity and energy spectra from about 2485 patches of about 100 megameters (Mm) side length on the solar surface using data from Hinode during 2006--2017. An extensive database is assembled where we list magnetic energy…
A gauge invariant and hence physically meaningful definition of magnetic helicity density for random fields is proposed, using the Gauss linking formula, as the density of correlated field line linkages. This definition is applied to the…