Related papers: Confinement of the Solar Tachocline by a Non-Axisy…
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.…
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 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…
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…
For more than thirty years, the dynamical maintenance of the thin solar tachocline has remained one of the central outstanding problems of stellar astrophysics. Three main theories have been developed to explain the tachocline's thinness,…
One possible scenario for the origin of the solar tachocline, known as the "fast tachocline", assumes that the turbulent diffusivity exceeds eta>10^9 cm^2/s. In this case the dynamics will be governed by the dynamo-generated oscillatory…
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 study the physics of the solar tachocline and related MHD instabilities. We have performed 3-D MHD simulations of the solar radiative interior to check whether a fossil magnetic field is able to prevent the spread of the tachocline.…
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…
Helioseismic measurements indicate that the solar tachocline is very thin, its full thickness not exceeding 4% of the solar radius. The mechanism that inhibits differential rotation to propagate from the convective zone to deeper into the…
The simplest interior magnetic field B_i that can explain the observed uniform rotation of the Sun's radiative envelope is an axial dipole stabilized by a deep toroidal field. It can explain the uniform rotation only if confined in the…
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…
The tachocline is important in the solar dynamo for the generation and the storage of the magnetic fields. A most plausible explanation for the confinement of the tachocline is given by the fast tachocline model in which the tachocline is…
The global-scale interior magnetic field needed to account for the Sun's observed differential rotation can be effective only if confined below the convection zone in all latitudes, including the polar caps. Axisymmetric nonlinear MHD…
We present detailed numerical calculations of the fast solar tachocline based on the assumption that the dynamo field dominates over the dynamics of the tachocline. In the present paper of the series, we focus on three shortfalls of the…
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…
High-latitude laminar confinement of the Sun's interior magnetic field is shown to be possible, as originally proposed by Gough and McIntyre (1998) but contrary to a recent claim by Brun and Zahn (A&A 2006). Mean downwelling as weak as…
Rather weak fossil magnetic fields in the radiative core can produce the solar tachocline if the field is poloidal and almost horizontal in the tachocline region, i.e. if the field is confined within the core. This particular field geometry…
When our Sun was young it rotated much more rapidly than now. Observations of young, rapidly rotating stars indicate that many possess substantial magnetic activity and strong axisymmetric magnetic fields. We conduct simulations of dynamo…
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…