Related papers: Building and Maintaining a Solar Tachocline throug…
The helioseismically observed solar tachocline is a thin internal boundary layer of shear that separates the rigidly-rotating solar radiative zone from the differentially-rotating convective zone and is believed to play a central role in…
A major outstanding problem in solar physics is the confinement of the solar tachocline, the thin shear layer that separates nearly solid-body rotation in the radiative interior from strong differential rotation in the convection zone.…
At the base of the Sun's convective zone, a narrow shear layer called the tachocline separates strong latitudinal differential rotation above from nearly rigid rotation in the radiative zone below. The observed thinness of the tachocline is…
The surprising thinness of the solar tachocline is still not understood with certainty today. Among the numerous possible scenarios suggested to explain its radial confinement, one hypothesis is based on Maxwell stresses that are exerted by…
The solar tachocline is an internal region of the Sun possessing strong radial and latitudinal shears straddling the base of the convective envelope. Based on helioseismic inversions, the tachocline is known to be thin (less than 5\% of the…
We present the first results from three-dimensional spherical shell simulations of magnetic dynamo action realized by turbulent convection penetrating downward into a tachocline of rotational shear. This permits us to assess several…
3D MHD global solar simulations coupling the turbulent convective zone and the radiative zone have been carried out. Essential features of the Sun such as differential rotation, meridional circulation and internal waves excitation are…
We recently presented the first 3D numerical simulation of the solar interior for which tachocline confinement was achieved by a dynamo-generated magnetic field. In this followup study, we analyze the degree of confinement as the magnetic…
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…
We present axisymmetric simulations of the coupled convective and radiative regions in the Sun in order to investigate the angular momentum evolution of the radiative interior. Both hydrodynamic and magnetohydrodynamic models were run. We…
Arguments are presented in favor of the idea that the solar dynamo may operate not just at the bottom of the convection zone, i.e. in the tachocline, but it may operate in a more distributed fashion in the entire convection zone. The…
Recently helioseismic observations have revealed the presence of a shear layer at the base of the convective zone related to the transition from differential rotation in the convection zone to almost uniform rotation in the radiative…
The operation of the solar global dynamo appears to involve many dynamical elements. Self-consistent MHD simulations which realistically incorporate all of these processes are not yet computationally feasible, though some elements can now…
The reason for the observed thinness of the solar tachocline is still not well understood. One of the explanations that have been proposed is that a primordial magnetic field renders the rotation uniform in the radiation zone. We test here…
Many stars exhibit strong magnetic fields, some of which are thought to be of primordial origin and others a sign of magnetic dynamo processes. We briefly review the results of observational studies of solar-type stars seeking to evaluate…
We present a local but fully nonlinear model of the solar tachocline, using three-dimensional direct numerical simulations. The tachocline forms naturally as a statistically steady balance between Coriolis, pressure, buoyancy and Lorentz…
The operation of the solar dynamo, with all of its remarkable spatio-temporal ordering, remains an outstanding problem of modern solar physics. A number of mechanisms that might plausibly contribute to its operation have been proposed, but…
Stars of sufficiently low mass are convective throughout their interiors, and so do not possess an internal boundary layer akin to the solar tachocline. Because that interface figures so prominently in many theories of the solar magnetic…
Gough & McIntyre have suggested that the dynamics of the solar tachocline are dominated by the advection-diffusion balance between the differential rotation, a large-scale primordial field and baroclinicly driven meridional motions. This…
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…