Related papers: Dynamo action by differential rotation in a stably…
Magnetic fields play a crucial role at all stages of the formation of low mass stars and planetary systems. In the final stages, in particular, they control the kinematics of in-falling gas from circumstellar discs, and the launching and…
Stability properties of magnetic-field configurations containing the toroidal and axial field are considered. The stability is treated by making use of linear analysis. It is shown that the conditions required for the onset of instability…
Magnetic braking causes the spin-down of single stars as they evolve on the main sequence. Models of magnetic braking can also explain the evolution of close binary systems, including cataclysmic variables. The well-known period gap in the…
Observations of cool stars reveal dark spot-like features on their surfaces. Compared to sunspots, starspots can be bigger or cover a larger fraction of the stellar surface. While sunspots appear only at low latitudes, starspots are also…
The magnetic activity of solar-type stars generally increases with stellar rotation rate. The increase, however, saturates for fast rotation. The Babcock-Leighton mechanism of stellar dynamos saturates as well when the mean tilt-angle of…
Large-scale planetary or stellar magnetic fields generated by a dynamo effect are mostly attributed to flows forced by buoyancy forces in electrically conducting fluid layers. However, these large-scale fields may also be controlled by…
The plethora of asymmetric planetary nebulae and the curiously high momenta of pre-planetary nebula outflows suggest that rotational energy is extracted from the engines. Magneto-rotational outflows driven by dynamos might be operating…
Astrophysical dynamos feature various spatial structures and dynamical regimes, ranging from hemispherical magnetic fields to the random reversals of the geodynamo. The recently observed Tayler-Spruit dynamo has been invoked to explain…
In a newly born (high-temperature and Keplerian rotating) neutron star, r-mode instability can lead to stellar differential rotation, which winds the seed poloidal magnetic field ($\sim 10^{11}$ G) to generate an ultra-high ($\sim 10^{17}$…
Magnetic fields are ubiquitous in the Universe. Extragalactic disks, halos and clusters have consistently been shown, via diffuse radio-synchrotron emission and Faraday rotation measurements, to exhibit magnetic field strengths ranging from…
According to our understanding of stellar evolution, early-type stars have radiative envelopes and convective cores due to a steep temperature gradient produced by the CNO cycle. Some of these stars (mainly, the subclasses Ap and Bp) have…
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 magnetic fields of spiral galaxies are so strong that they cannot be primordial. Their typical values are over one billion times higher than any value predicted for the early Universe. Explaining this immense growth and incorporating it…
We use numerical MHD to look at the stability of a possible poloidal field in neutron stars (Flowers & Ruderman 1977), and follow its unstable evolution, which leads to the complete decay of the field. We then model a neutron star after the…
Isolated neutron stars show a diversity in timing and spectral properties, which has historically led to a classification in different sub-classes. The magnetic field plays a key role in many aspects of the neutron star phenomenology: it…
Irregular galaxies are usually smaller and less massive than their spiral, S0, and elliptical counterparts. Radio observations indicate that a magnetic field is present in irregular galaxies whose value is similar to that in spiral…
Differential rotation in stars generates toroidal magnetic fields whenever an initial seed poloidal field is present. The resulting magnetic stresses, along with viscosity, drive the star toward uniform rotation. This magnetic braking has…
We review some of the recent progress on modeling planetary and stellar dynamos. Particular attention is given to the dynamo mechanisms and the resulting properties of the field. We present direct numerical simulations using a simple…
We show that the presence of a steady $\ao$ dynamo in astrophysical rotators likely leads to an outflow of relative magnetic helicity and thus magnetic energy available for particle acceleration in a corona. The connection between energy…
M-dwarf stars below a certain mass are convective from their cores to their photospheres. These fully convective objects are extremely numerous, very magnetically active, and the likely hosts of many exoplanets. Here we study, for the first…