Three dimensional simulations of Hall magnetohydrodynamics

Abstract

Turbulent flows take place in a large variety of astrophysical objects, and often times are the source of dynamo generated magnetic fields. Much of the progress in our understanding of dynamo mechanisms, has been made within the theoretical framework of magnetohydrodynamics (MHD). However, for sufficiently diffuse media, the Hall effect eventually becomes non-negligible. We present results from simulations of the Hall-MHD equations. The simulations are performed with a pseudospectral code to achieve exponentially fast convergence. We study the role of the Hall effect in the dynamo efficiency for different values of the Hall parameter. © 2011 International Astronomical Union.