2009 (IPP)
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://localhost:4000/handle/11007/332
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Item Magnetic quenching of alpha and diffusity tensors in helical turbulence(2011-07-06) Brandenburg, Axel; Biman, B.; Subramanian, Kandaswamy; et al.We study the implications of primordial magnetic fields for the thermal and ionization history of the post-recombination era. In particular we compute the effects of dissipation of primordial magnetic fields owing to ambipolar diffusion and decaying turbulence in the intergalactic medium (IGM) and the collapsing halos and compute the effects of the altered thermal and ionization history on the formation of molecular hydrogen.We show that, for magnetic field strengths in the range 2×10−10 G < ∼ B0 < ∼ 2× 10−9 G, the molecular hydrogen fraction in IGM and collapsing halo can increase by a factor 5 to 1000 over the case with no magnetic fields. We discuss the implication of the increased molecular hydrogen fraction on the radiative transfer of UV photons and the formation of first structures in the universeItem Role of the Yoshizawa effect in the Archontis dynamo(2009-05-01) Sur, Sharanya; Brandenburg, AxelThe generation of mean magnetic fields is studied for a simple non-helical flow where a net cross helicity of either sign can emerge. This flow, which is also known as the Archontis flow, is a generalization of the Arnold–Beltrami–Childress flow, but with the cosine terms omitted. The presence of cross helicity leads to a mean-field dynamo effect that is known as the Yoshizawa effect. Direct numerical simulations of such flows demonstrate the presence of magnetic fields on scales larger than the scale of the flow. Contrary to earlier expectations, the Yoshizawa effect is found to be proportional to the mean magnetic field and can therefore lead to its exponential instead of just linear amplification for magnetic Reynolds numbers that exceed a certain critical value. Unlike α effect dynamos, it is found that the Yoshizawa effect is not noticeably constrained by the presence of a conservation law. It is argued that this is due to the presence of a forcing term in the momentum equation which leads to a nonzero correlation with the magnetic field. Finally, the application to energy convergence in solar wind turbulence is discussed.