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Tayler Instability (tayler + instability)
Selected AbstractsDynamo-generated magnetic fields at the surface of a massive starMONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY, Issue 3 2005D. J. Mullan ABSTRACT Spruit has shown that an astrophysical dynamo can operate in the non-convective material of a differentially rotating star as a result of a particular instability in the magnetic field (the Tayler instability). By assuming that the dynamo operates in a state of marginal instability, Spruit has obtained formulae which predict the equilibrium strengths of azimuthal and radial field components in terms of local physical quantities. Here, we apply Spruit's formulae to our previously published models of rotating massive stars in order to estimate Tayler dynamo field strengths. There are no free parameters in Spruit's formulae. In our models of 10- and 50-M, stars on the zero-age main sequence, we find internal azimuthal fields of up to 1 MG, and internal radial components of a few kG. Evolved models contain weaker fields. In order to obtain estimates of the field strength at the stellar surface, we examine the conditions under which the Tayler dynamo fields are subject to magnetic buoyancy. We find that conditions for Tayler instability overlap with those for buoyancy at intermediate to high magnetic latitudes. This suggests that fields emerge at the surface of a massive star between magnetic latitudes of about 45° and the poles. We attempt to estimate the strength of the field which emerges at the surface of a massive star. Although these estimates are very rough, we find that the surface field strengths overlap with values which have been reported recently for line-of-sight fields in several O and B stars. [source] Tayler instability of toroidal magnetic fields in MHD Taylor-Couette flowsASTRONOMISCHE NACHRICHTEN, Issue 1 2010G. Rüdiger Abstract The nonaxisymmetric Tayler instability (TI) of toroidal magnetic fields due to axial electric currents is studied for conducting incompressible fluids between two infinitely long corotating cylinders. For given Reynolds number of rotation the magnetic Prandtl number Pm of the liquid conductor and the ratio of the cylinder's rotation rates are the free parameters. It is shown that for resting cylinders the critical Hartmann number for instability does not depend on Pm hence the TI also exists in the limit Pm , 0. By rigid rotation the instability is suppressed where for Pm = 1 the rotational quenching takes its maximum. Rotation laws with negative shear (i.e. d, /dR < 0) strongly destabilize the toroidal field if the rotation is not too fast. In galaxies with their quadrupolar magnetic field geometry this effect could have drastic implications. For sufficiently high Reynolds numbers of rotation, however, the TI completely disappears. For the considered magnetic constellation the superrotation laws support the rotational stabilization. The angular momentum transport of the instability is anticorrelated with the shear so that an eddy viscosity can be defined which proves to be positive. We have also shown the possibility of laboratory TI experiments with a wide-gap container filled with fluid metals like sodium or gallium. Even the effect of the rotational stabilization can be reproduced in the laboratory with electric currents of only a few kA (© 2010 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim) [source] Tayler instability with Hall effect in young neutron starsASTRONOMISCHE NACHRICHTEN, Issue 1 2009G. Rüdiger Abstract Collapse calculations indicate that the hot young neutron stars rotate differentially so that strong toroidal magnetic field components should exist in the outer shell where also the Hall effect appears to be important when the Hall parameter = ,B, exceeds unity. The amplitudes of the induced toroidal magnetic fields are limited by the current-induced Tayler instability. An important characteristics of the Hall effect is its distinct dependence on the sign of the magnetic field. We find for fast rotation that positive (negative) Hall parameters essentially reduce (increase) the stability domain. It is thus concluded that the toroidal field belts in young neutron stars induced by their differential rotation should have different amplitudes in both hemispheres which later are frozen in. Due to the effect of magnetic suppression of the heat conductivity also the brightness of the two hemispheres should be different. As a possible example for our scenario the isolated neutron star RBS 1223 is considered which has been found to exhibit different X-ray brightness at both hemispheres (© 2009 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim) [source] | ||||||||||