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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 73 records · Page 4
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1994

The solar dynamo

The solar dynamo is the process by which the Sun's magnetic field is generated through the interaction of the field with convection and rotation. In this, it is kin to planetary dynamos and other stellar dynamos. Although the precise mechanism by which the Sun generates its field remains poorly understood in spite of decades of theoretical and observational work, recent advances suggest that solutions to this solar dynamo problem may be forthcoming. The two basic processes involved in dynamo activity are demonstrated and the Sun's activity effects are presented in this document, along with a historical perspective regarding solar dynamos and the efforts to understand and measure them.

Hathaway, David H.↗
NASA NTRS1993

Kinematic Dynamo In Turbulent Circumstellar Disks

Many circumstellar disks associated with objects ranging from protoplanetary nebulae, to accretion disks around compact stars allow for the generation of magnetic fields by an (alpha)omega dynamo. We have applied kinematic dynamo formalism to geometrically thin accretion disks. We calculate, in the framework of an adiabatic approximation, the normal mode solutions for dynamos operating in disks around compact stars. We then describe the criteria for a viable dynamo in protoplanetary nebulae, and discuss the particular features that make accretion disk dynamos different from planetary, stellar, and galactic dynamos.

Stepinski, T.↗
NASA NTRS2004

Recent Progress in Understanding the Sun's Magnetic Dynamo

100 years ago we thought that the Sun and stars shone as a result of slow gravitational contraction over a few tens of millions of years - putting astronomers at odds with geologists who claimed that the Earth was much, much older. That mystery was solved in the 1920s and 30s with the discovery of nuclear energy (proving that the geologists had it right all along). Other scientific mysteries concerning the Sun have come and gone but three major mysteries remain: 1) How does the Sun produce sunspots with an 11-year cycle? 2) What produces the huge explosions that result in solar flares, prominence eruptions, and coronal mass ejections? and 3) Why is the Sun's outer atmosphere, the corona, so darned hot? Recent progress in solar astronomy reveals a single key to understanding all three of these mysteries.The 11-year time scale for the sunspot cycle indicates the presence of a magnetic dynamo within the Sun. For decades this dynamo was though to operate within the Sun's convection zone - the outmost 30% of the Sun where convective currents transport heat and advect magnetic lines of force. The two leading theories for the dynamo had very different models for the dynamics of the convection zone. Actual measurements of the dynamics using the techniques of helioseismology showed that both of these models had to be wrong some 20 years ago. A thin layer of strongly sheared flow at the base of the convection zone (now called the tachocline) was then taken to be the seat of the dynamo. Over the last 10 years it has become apparent that a weak meridional circulation within the convection zone also plays a key role in the dynamo. This meridional circulation has plasma rising up from the tachocline in the equatorial regions, spreading out toward the poles at a top speed of about 10-20 m/s at the surface, sinking back down to the tachocline in the polar regions, and then flowing back toward the equator at a top speed of about 1-2 m/s in the tachocline itself. Recent dynamo models that include this meridional flow now appear to have some power for predicting the size of future sunspot cycles.

Hathaway, David. H.↗
DOE OSTI2021

Time-resolved turbulent dynamo in a laser plasma

Understanding magnetic-field generation and amplification in turbulent plasma is essential to account for observations of magnetic fields in the universe. A theoretical framework attributing the origin and sustainment of these fields to the so-called fluctuation dynamo was recently validated by experiments on laser facilities in low-magnetic-Prandtl-number plasmas (Pm < 1). However, the same framework proposes that the fluctuation dynamo should operate differently when Pm ≳ 1, the regime relevant to many astrophysical environments such as the intracluster medium of galaxy clusters. This paper reports an experiment that creates a laboratory Pm ≳ 1 plasma dynamo. We provide a time-resolved characterization of the plasma’s evolution, measuring temperatures, densities, flow velocities, and magnetic fields, which allows us to explore various stages of the fluctuation dynamo’s operation on seed magnetic fields generated by the action of the Biermann-battery mechanism during the initial drive-laser target interaction. The magnetic energy in structures with characteristic scales close to the driving scale of the stochastic motions is found to increase by almost three orders of magnitude and saturate dynamically. It is shown that the initial growth of these fields occurs at a much greater rate than the turnover rate of the driving-scale stochastic motions. Here, our results point to the possibility that plasma turbulence produced by strong shear can generate fields more efficiently at the driving scale than anticipated by idealized magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) simulations of the nonhelical fluctuation dynamo; this finding could help explain the large-scale fields inferred from observations of astrophysical systems.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2021

Gravito-turbulence and dynamo in poorly ionized protostellar discs – I. Zero-net-flux case

In their early stages, protoplanetary discs are sufficiently massive to undergo gravitational instability (GI). This instability is thought to be involved in mass accretion, planet formation via gas fragmentation, the generation of spiral density waves, and outbursts. A key and very recent area of research is the interaction between the GI and magnetic fields in young protoplanetary discs, in particular whether this instability is able to sustain a magnetic field via a dynamo. We conduct 3D, stratified shearing-box simulations using two independent codes, PLUTO and Athena++, to characterize the GI dynamo in poorly ionized protostellar discs subject to ambipolar diffusion. We find that the dynamo operates across a large range of ambipolar Elssaser number Am (which characterizes the strength of ambipolar diffusion) and is particularly strong in the regime Am = 10–100, with typical magnetic to thermal energy ratios of order unity. The dynamo is only weakly dependent on resolution (at least for Am ≲ 100), box size, and cooling law. The magnetic field is produced by the combination of differential rotation and large-scale vertical roll motions associated with spiral density waves. Our results have direct implications for the dynamo process in young protoplanetary discs and possibly some regions of active galactic nucleus discs.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2023

Critical magnetic Reynolds number of the turbulent dynamo in collisionless plasmas

The intracluster medium of galaxy clusters is an extremely hot and diffuse, nearly collisionless plasma, which hosts dynamically important magnetic fields of ~μG strength. Seed magnetic fields of much weaker strength of astrophysical or primordial origin can be present in the intracluster medium. In collisional plasmas, which can be approximated in the magnetohydrodynamical (MHD) limit, the turbulent dynamo mechanism can amplify weak seed fields to strong dynamical levels efficiently by converting turbulent kinetic energy into magnetic energy. However, the viability of this mechanism in weakly collisional or completely collisionless plasma is much less understood. In this study, we explore the properties of the collisionless turbulent dynamo using three-dimensional hybrid-kinetic particle-in-cell simulations. We explore the properties of the collisionless turbulent dynamo in the kinematic regime for different values of the magnetic Reynolds number, Rm, initial magnetic-to-kinetic energy ratio, (E mag /E kin ) i , and initial Larmor ratio, (r Larmor /L box ) i , i.e. the ratio of the Larmor radius to the size of the turbulent system. We find that in the ‘un-magnetized’ regime, (r Larmor /L box ) i > 1, the critical magnetic Reynolds number for the dynamo action Rm crit ≈ 107 ± 3. In the ‘magnetized’ regime, (r Larmor /L box ) i ≲ 1, we find a marginally higher Rm crit = 124 ± 8. We find that the growth rate of the magnetic energy does not depend on the strength of the seed magnetic field when the initial magnetization is fixed. We also study the distribution and evolution of the pressure anisotropy in the collisionless plasma and compare our results with the MHD turbulent dynamo.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2018

Fluctuation Dynamo in a Collisionless, Weakly Magnetized Plasma

Results from a numerical study of fluctuation dynamo in a collisionless, weakly magnetized plasma are presented. The key difference between this dynamo and its magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) counterpart is the adiabatic production of magnetic-field-aligned pressure anisotropy by the amplification of a weak seed field. This, in turn, drives kinetic instabilities on the ion-Larmor scale—namely, firehose and mirror—which sever the adiabatic link between the thermal and magnetic pressures, thereby allowing the dynamo to proceed. After an initial phase of rapid growth driven by these instabilities, the magnetic energy grows exponentially and exhibits a ${k}^{3/2}$ spectrum that peaks near the resistive scale, similar to the large-magnetic-Prandtl-number ($\mathrm{Pm}\gg 1$) MHD dynamo. The magnetic field self-organizes into a folded-sheet topology, with direction reversals at the resistive scale and field lines curved at the parallel scale of the flow. The effective $\mathrm{Pm}$ is determined by whether the ion-Larmor scale is above or below the field-reversing scale: in the former case, particles undergo Bohm-like diffusion; in the latter case, particles scatter primarily off of firehose fluctuations residing at the ends of the magnetic folds, and the viscosity becomes anisotropic. The magnetic field ultimately saturates at dynamical strengths, with its spectral peak migrating toward larger scales. This feature, along with an anti-correlation of magnetic-field strength and field-line curvature and a gradual thinning of magnetic sheets into ribbons, resembles the saturated state of the large-$\mathrm{Pm}$ dynamo, the primary differences manifesting in firehose/mirror-unstable regions. Furthermore, these results have implications for magnetic-field growth in the weakly collisional intracluster medium of galaxy clusters.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
NASA NTRS2014

Could Giant Basin-Forming Impacts Have Killed Martian Dynamo?

The observed strong remanent crustal magnetization at the surface of Mars suggests an active dynamo in the past and ceased to exist around early to middle Noachian era, estimated by examining remagnetization strengths in extant and buried impact basins. We investigate whether the Martian dynamo could have been killed by these large basin-forming impacts, via numerical simulation of subcritical dynamos with impact-induced thermal heterogeneity across the core-mantle boundary. We find that subcritical dynamos are prone to the impacts centered on locations within 30 deg of the equator but can easily survive those at higher latitudes. Our results further suggest that magnetic timing places a strong constraint on postimpact polar reorientation, e.g., a minimum 16 deg polar reorientation is needed if Utopia is the dynamo killer.

Martian Dynamo↗
DOE OSTI2021

Can magnetogenesis driven by dynamo instabilities in chiral fermion plasmas, favor Einstein–Cartan AdS cosmology?

In this letter we show that the magnetic field (MF) bounds induced by Einstein–Cartan–de Sitter (EC) with AdS anti-de Sitter spacetime geometry and fermionic torsion with chiral dynamo plasmas instabilities, with inhomogeneous uniform chiral chemical potential, indicates that there is a possibility, as far as magnetogenesis is concerned, that we may obtain more stringent results within ECAdS gravity, compared with general relativity (GR) limits obtained by Tsagas using torsionless magnetogenesis. Spinorial fermionic source with torsion induces a chiral plasmas oscillation. The time dependent chiral chemical potential, sometimes associated formally with torsion, (de Andrade, 2018), is obtained from chiral flipping equation. The MFs obtained from the present universe ECdS chiral dynamo model, meet the criteria of galactic seed fields with better limits within Tsagas range (Tsagas, 2015) seed galactic magnetic fields for dynamo mechanisms, than the bound obtained by chiral dynamos in torsionless AdS cosmology. Majorana neutrinos are used as spatial components of axial spin-torsion source of dynamo instability from neutrino asymmetry.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2012

Effect of stochasticity in mean field dynamo models

We present a comprehensive investigation into the effect of choosing the stochastic control parameters in a simplified-Parker dynamo model. Through considering the manifold of marginal stability, i.e., the region of parameter space where the mean growth rate is zero, we show that stochastic fluctuations are not prohibitive to dynamo. Furthermore, by directly comparing results obtained by periodic and Gaussian coloured noise alpha with identical characteristic time-scales and fluctuating amplitudes, we find that the transition to dynamo is significantly eased for stochastically fluctuating alpha. The effect of stochasticity in magnetic diffusion is also investigated, highlighting the importance of resonance between poloidal and toroidal magnetic fields on the growth rate. Furthermore, we show that probability density functions of the growth-rate, magnetic field, and magnetic energy can provide a wealth of useful information regarding the dynamo behaviour/intermittency. Finally, the statistical properties of the dynamo such as temporal correlation and fluctuating amplitude are found to be dependent on the distribution of the fluctuations in stocastic parameters.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2011

NONLINEAR SMALL-SCALE DYNAMOS AT LOW MAGNETIC PRANDTL NUMBERS

Saturated small-scale dynamo solutions driven by isotropic non-helical turbulence are presented at low magnetic Prandtl numbers Pr{sub M} down to 0.01. For Pr{sub M} < 0.1, most of the energy is dissipated via Joule heat and, in agreement with earlier results for helical large-scale dynamos, kinetic energy dissipation is shown to diminish proportional to Pr{sup 1/2}{sub M} down to values of 0.1. In agreement with earlier work, there is, in addition to a short Golitsyn k {sup -11/3} spectrum near the resistive scale, also some evidence for a short k {sup -1} spectrum on larger scales. The rms magnetic field strength of the small-scale dynamo is found to depend only weakly on the value of Pr{sub M} and decreases by about a factor of two as Pr{sub M} is decreased from 1 to 0.01. The possibility of dynamo action at Pr{sub M} = 0.1 in the nonlinear regime is argued to be a consequence of a suppression of the bottleneck seen in the kinetic energy spectrum in the absence of a dynamo and, more generally, a suppression of kinetic energy near the dissipation wavenumber.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2011

TURBULENT CROSS-HELICITY IN THE MEAN-FIELD SOLAR DYNAMO PROBLEM

We study the dynamical and statistical properties of turbulent cross-helicity (correlation of the aligned fluctuating velocity and magnetic field components). We derive an equation governing generation and evolution of the turbulent cross-helicity and discuss its meaning for the dynamo. Using the symmetry properties of the problem we suggest a general expression for the turbulent cross-helicity. Effects of the density stratification, large-scale magnetic fields, differential rotation, and turbulent convection are taken into account. We investigate the relative contribution of these effects to the cross-helicity evolution for two kinds of dynamo models of the solar cycle: a distributed mean-field model and a flux-transport dynamo model. We show that the contribution from the density stratification follows the evolution of the radial magnetic field, while large-scale electric currents produce a more complicated pattern of the cross-helicity of comparable magnitude. The pattern of the cross-helicity evolution strongly depends on details of the dynamo mechanism. Thus, we anticipate that direct observations of the cross-helicity on the Sun may serve for the diagnostic purpose of the solar dynamo process.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2012

CATASTROPHIC QUENCHING IN {alpha}{Omega} DYNAMOS REVISITED

At large magnetic Reynolds numbers, magnetic helicity evolution plays an important role in astrophysical large-scale dynamos. The recognition of this fact led to the development of the dynamical {alpha} quenching formalism, which predicts catastrophically low mean fields in open systems. Here, we show that in oscillatory {alpha}{Omega} dynamos this formalism predicts an unphysical magnetic helicity transfer between scales. An alternative technique is proposed where this artifact is removed by using the evolution equation for the magnetic helicity of the total field in the shearing advective gauge. In the traditional dynamical {alpha} quenching formalism, this can be described by an additional magnetic helicity flux of small-scale fields that does not appear in homogeneous {alpha}{sup 2} dynamos. In {alpha}{Omega} dynamos, the alternative formalism is shown to lead to larger saturation fields than what has been obtained in some earlier models with the traditional formalism. We have compared the predictions of the two formalisms to results of direct numerical simulations, finding that the alternative formulation provides a better fit. This suggests that worries about catastrophic dynamo behavior in the limit of large magnetic Reynolds number are unfounded.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2013

DYNAMO ACTION AND MAGNETIC CYCLES IN F-TYPE STARS

Magnetic activity and differential rotation are commonly observed features on main-sequence F-type stars. We seek to make contact with such observations and to provide a self-consistent picture of how differential rotation and magnetic fields arise in the interiors of these stars. The three-dimensional magnetohydrodynamic anelastic spherical harmonic code is employed to simulate global-scale convection and dynamo processes in a 1.2 M{sub ☉} F-type star at two rotation rates. The simulations are carried out in spherical shells that encompass most of the convection zone and a portion of the stably stratified radiative zone below it, allowing us to explore the effects a stable zone has upon the morphology of the global-scale magnetic fields. We find that dynamo action with a high degree of time variation occurs in the star rotating more rapidly at 20 Ω{sub ☉}, with the polarity of the mean field reversing on a timescale of about 1600 days. Between reversals, the magnetic energy rises and falls with a fairly regular period, with three magnetic energy cycles required to complete a reversal. The magnetic energy cycles and polarity reversals arise due to a linking of the polar-slip instability in the stable region and dynamo action present in the convection zone. For the more slowly rotating case (10 Ω{sub ☉}), persistent wreaths of magnetism are established and maintained by dynamo action. Compared to their hydrodynamic progenitors, the dynamo states here involve a marked reduction in the exhibited latitudinal differential rotation, which also vary during the course of a cycle.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2014

Spatial nonlocality of the small-scale solar dynamo

We explore the nature of the small-scale solar dynamo by tracking magnetic features. We investigate two previously explored categories of the small-scale solar dynamo: shallow and deep. Recent modeling work on the shallow dynamo has produced a number of scenarios for how a strong network concentration can influence the formation and polarity of nearby small-scale magnetic features. These scenarios have measurable signatures, for which we test using magnetograms from the Narrowband Filter Imager (NFI) on board Hinode. We find no statistical tendency for newly formed magnetic features to cluster around or away from network concentrations, nor do we find any statistical relationship between their polarities. We conclude that there is no shallow or 'surface' dynamo on the spatial scales observable by Hinode/NFI. In light of these results, we offer a scenario in which the subsurface field in a deep solar dynamo is stretched and distorted via turbulence, allowing the small-scale field to emerge at random locations on the photosphere.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2011

BUOYANT MAGNETIC LOOPS IN A GLOBAL DYNAMO SIMULATION OF A YOUNG SUN

The current dynamo paradigm for the Sun and Sun-like stars places the generation site for strong toroidal magnetic structures deep in the solar interior. Sunspots and starspots on Sun-like stars are believed to arise when sections of these magnetic structures become buoyantly unstable and rise from the deep interior to the photosphere. Here, we present the first three-dimensional global magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulation in which turbulent convection, stratification, and rotation combine to yield a dynamo that self-consistently generates buoyant magnetic loops. We simulate stellar convection and dynamo action in a spherical shell with solar stratification, but rotating three times faster than the current solar rate. Strong wreaths of toroidal magnetic field are realized by dynamo action in the convection zone. By turning to a dynamic Smagorinsky model for subgrid-scale turbulence, we here attain considerably reduced diffusion in our simulation. This permits the regions of strongest magnetic field in these wreaths to rise toward the top of the convection zone via a combination of magnetic buoyancy instabilities and advection by convective giant cells. Such a global simulation yielding buoyant loops represents a significant step forward in combining numerical models of dynamo action and flux emergence.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2014

A THREE-DIMENSIONAL BABCOCK-LEIGHTON SOLAR DYNAMO MODEL

We present a three-dimensional (3D) kinematic solar dynamo model in which poloidal field is generated by the emergence and dispersal of tilted sunspot pairs (more generally bipolar magnetic regions, or BMRs). The axisymmetric component of this model functions similarly to previous 2.5 dimensional (2.5D, axisymmetric) Babcock-Leighton (BL) dynamo models that employ a double-ring prescription for poloidal field generation but we generalize this prescription into a 3D flux emergence algorithm that places BMRs on the surface in response to the dynamo-generated toroidal field. In this way, the model can be regarded as a unification of BL dynamo models (2.5D in radius/latitude) and surface flux transport models (2.5D in latitude/longitude) into a more self-consistent framework that builds on the successes of each while capturing the full 3D structure of the evolving magnetic field. The model reproduces some basic features of the solar cycle including an 11 yr periodicity, equatorward migration of toroidal flux in the deep convection zone, and poleward propagation of poloidal flux at the surface. The poleward-propagating surface flux originates as trailing flux in BMRs, migrates poleward in multiple non-axisymmetric streams (made axisymmetric by differential rotation and turbulent diffusion), and eventually reverses the polar field, thus sustaining the dynamo. In this Letter we briefly describe the model, initial results, and future plans.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2014

TIDALLY DRIVEN DYNAMOS IN A ROTATING SPHERE

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 tides, as previously suggested for the star τ-boo, Mars, or the early Moon. By simulating a small local patch of a rotating fluid, Barker and Lithwick have recently shown that tides can drive small-scale dynamos by exciting a hydrodynamic instability, the so-called elliptical (or tidal) instability. By performing global magnetohydrodynamic simulations of a rotating spherical fluid body, we investigate if this instability can also drive the observed large-scale magnetic fields. We are thus interested in the dynamo threshold and the generated magnetic field in order to test if such a mechanism is relevant for planets and stars. Rather than solving the problem in a geometry deformed by tides, we consider a spherical fluid body and add a body force to mimic the tidal deformation in the bulk of the fluid. This allows us to use an efficient spectral code to solve the magnetohydrodynamic problem. We first compare the hydrodynamic results with theoretical asymptotic results and numerical results obtained in a truly deformed ellipsoid, which confirms the presence of elliptical instability. We then perform magnetohydrodynamic simulations and investigate the dynamo capability of the flow. Kinematic and self-consistent dynamos are finally simulated, showing that the elliptical instability is capable of generating a dipole-dominated large-scale magnetic field in global simulations of a fluid rotating sphere.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗