Diffusion-Free Dynamics in Rotating Spherical Shell Convection Driven By Internal Heating and Cooling

The bulk properties of convection in stellar and giant planet interiors are often assumed to be independent of the molecular diffusivities, which are very small. By contrast, simulations of this process in rotating, spherical shells, which are typically driven by conductive boundary heat fluxes, generally yield results that depend on the diffusivity. This makes it challenging to extrapolate these simulation results to real objects. However, laboratory models and Cartesian-box simulations suggest that diffusion-free dynamics are more readily obtained if convection is driven using prescribed internal heating and cooling instead of boundary fluxes. Here, we apply this methodology to simulations of Boussinesq, hydrodynamic rotating spherical shell convection. We find that this set-up unambiguously yields diffusion-free behaviour for some bulk properties of the convection, such as the radial temperature contrast and the convective heat transport. Moreover, the transition from prograde to retrograde equatorial zonal flow is diffusion-free and only depends on the convective Rossby number. The diffusivity dependence of other bulk properties is regime-dependent. In simulations that are rotationally constrained, the convective velocities, and the strength and structure of the zonal flow, are diffusion-dependent, although the zonal flow appears to approach a diffusion-free state for sufficiently high supercriticality. In simulations that are uninfluenced by rotation, or are only influenced by rotation at large scales, diffusion-free convective velocities and zonal flows are obtained. The result that many aspects of our idealised simulations are diffusion-free has promising implications for the development of realistic stellar and giant planet convection models that can access diffusion-free regimes.