Solar Dynamo Theory: Video 1

A video from the 2014 review by Paul Charbonneau, "Solar Dynamo Theory," from the Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics.

Magnetic cycles in a global EULAG-MHD anelastic simulation, essentially identical to those by Ghizaru et al. (2010) and Racine et al. (2011). This simulation includes a convectively stable fluid layer underlying the convecting layers. (a) A snapshot in Mollweide projection of the toroidal (zonal) magnetic component at depth r/R☉ = 0.718; (b) a snapshot of the zonally averaged toroidal field in a meridional plane taken at the same time as panel a. (c) Time-latitude and (d)radius-latitude diagrams of the zonally averaged toroidal field, the former at depth r/R☉ = 0.718 and the latter at latitude +25°. The dashed lines in panels b and d indicate the bottom of the convectively unstable layers. This is a moderate-resolution simulation, rotating at the solar rate but subluminous with respect to the Sun.