Dynamo action in rotating convection

Abstract

We present MHD numerical simulations of a rotating turbulent convection system in a 3D domain (we have used the finite volume, Goudunov type MHD code PLUTO (Mignone et al. 2007)). Rotating convection is the natural scenario for the study of the dynamo action which is able to generate a large scale magnetic field, like the observed in the sun. Though we have neglected in the present approach the Ω effect, due to a large scale shear, our model is appropriate to test the controversial existence of the so called α effect that arises from helical turbulence (e.g. Cattaneo & Hughes 2006, Käpylä et al. 2009). We start with a two-layer piece-wise polytropic region in hydrostatic equilibrium (e.g. Ziegler 2002), considering one stable overshoot layer at the bottom and a convectively unstable layer at the top of the computational domain. We have allowed this hydrodynamic system to evolve up to the steady state, i.e., after about 10 turnover times (τ). Then, we introduced a seed magnetic field and let the system evolve for more ~40 τ. Our preliminary results are summarized below in Figure 2.