Solar and stellar convection zones.
Abstract
There are several important astrophysical questions that might be answered by numerical modelling. These involve the kinematic effects of motion on magnetic fields, the dynamics of magnetoconvection, the structure and scale of convection and the global dynamo problem. This review focuses on detailed modelling of nonlinear compressible convection in a strong vertical magnetic field. Techniques range from heuristic models, which may be relatively primitive, through idealized experiments to large scale simulations and each approach has its proponents. There have been systematic investigations of fully compressible two- and three-dimensional convection as well as ambitious simulations. Detailed studies of two-dimensional behaviour reveal complicated bifurcation structures, involving changes of scale and transitions from steady to oscillatory solutions and from standing waves to travelling waves. Models of large-scale behaviour throughout the convection zone of a star like the sun show that dynamo action can occur but are still far from being able to reproduce the observed patterns of differential rotation or magnetic activity.
- Publication:
-
Computer Physics Reports
- Pub Date:
- May 1990
- DOI:
- 10.1016/0167-7977(90)90012-U
- Bibcode:
- 1990CoPhR..12..233W
- Keywords:
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- Solar Convective Zone: Magnetohydrodynamics;
- Convective Zones: Stars;
- Dynamo Theory;
- Convection: Numerical Simulations