Related papers: Magnetic Helicity and the Relaxation of Fossil Fie…
Magnetic fields in upper main-sequence stars, white dwarfs, and neutron stars are known to persist for timescales comparable to their lifetimes. From a theoretical perspective this is problematic, as it can be shown that simple magnetic…
Context. The understanding of fossil fields origin, topology and stability is one of the corner stones of the stellar magnetism theory. On one hand, since they survive over secular time-scales, they may modify the structure and the…
We investigate the instability of purely poloidal magnetic fields in nonrotating neutron stars by means of three-dimensional general-relativistic magnetohydrodynamics simulations, extending the work presented in Ciolfi et al. (2011). Our…
The magnetic fields observed in Ap-stars, white dwarfs, and neutron stars are known to be stable for long times. However, the physical conditions inside the stellar interiors that allow these states are still a matter of research. It has…
Neutron stars can harbor extremely strong magnetic fields, yet the structure and stability of their magnetic field configuration remain poorly understood. Observations of pulsars indicate that the large-scale external field is predominantly…
In stably stratified stars, numerical magneto-hydrodynamics simulations have shown that arbitrary initial magnetic fields evolve into stable equilibrium configurations, usually containing nearly axisymmetric, linked poloidal and toroidal…
We have studied numerically the evolution of magnetic fields in barotropic neutron stars, by performing nonlinear magnetohydrodynamical simulations with the code PLUTO. For both initially predominantly poloidal and toroidal fields, with…
The problem of the stability of magnetic fields in stars has a long history and has been investigated in detail in perturbation theory. Here we consider the nonlinear evolution of a non-rotating neutron star with a purely poloidal magnetic…
Magnetic fields represent a crucial aspect of the physics and astrophysics of neutron stars. Despite its great relevance, the internal magnetic field configuration of neutron stars is very poorly constrained by the observations, and…
This paper provides a brief overview of the formation of stellar fossil magnetic fields and what potential instabilities may occur given certain configurations of the magnetic field. In particular, a purely magnetic instability can occur…
In this third paper in a series on stable magnetic equilibria in stars, I look at the stability of axisymmetric field configurations and in particular at the relative strengths of the toroidal and poloidal components. Both toroidal and…
Magnetar magnetospheres gradually become twisted due to shearing by footpoint motion. The axisymmetric solutions for the force-free field with a power-law current model are calculated by taking into account general relativistic effects.…
The dynamics of magnetic field decay with Hall drift is investigated. Assuming that axisymmetric magnetic fields are located in a spherical crust with uniform conductivity and electron number density, long-term evolution is calculated up to…
Recent numerical magnetohydrodynamic calculations by Braithwaite and collaborators support the `fossil field' hypothesis regarding the origin of magnetic fields in compact stars and suggest that the resistive evolution of the fossil field…
(Abridged) We develop a theoretical framework to construct axisymmetric magnetic equilibria in stars, consisting of both poloidal and toroidal magnetic field components. In a stationary axisymmetric configuration, the poloidal current is a…
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…
We study the stability of neutron stars with toroidal magnetic fields by magnetohydrodynamic simulation in full general relativity under assumption of axial symmetry. Nonrotating and rigidly rotating neutron stars are prepared for a variety…
The stability of large-scale magnetic fields in rotating stars is explored, using 3D numerical hydrodynamics to follow the evolution of an initial poloidal field. It is found that the field is subject to an instability, located initially on…
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…
We construct barotropic stellar equilibria, containing magnetic fields with both poloidal and toroidal field components. We extend earlier results by exploring the effect of different magnetic field and current distributions. Our results…