The α effect in rotating convection with sinusoidal shear

Abstract

Using three-dimensional convection simulations, it is shown that a sinusoidal variation of horizontal shear leads to a kinematic α effect with a similar sinusoidal variation. The effect exists even for weak stratification and arises owing to the inhomogeneity of turbulence and the presence of impenetrable vertical boundaries. This system produces large-scale magnetic fields that also show a sinusoidal variation in the cross-stream direction. It is argued that earlier investigations overlooked these phenomena partly because of the use of horizontal averaging and also because measurements of α using an imposed field combined with long time averages give erroneous results. It is demonstrated that in such cases the actual horizontally averaged mean field becomes non-uniform. The turbulent magnetic diffusion term resulting from such non-uniform fields can then no longer be neglected and begins to balance the α effect. © 2009 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2009 RAS.