Department of Computer Science

Evidence of turbulent dynamo action in the Sun

Astroinformatics research group has determined magnetic helicity spectrum from the solar surface observations using the recently developed two-scale formalism.
ReSolve CoE (Astroinformatics research group) determined magnetic helicity spectrum
magnetic energy (solid line) and helicity (dashed line, circles) spectra obtained after averaging spectra from CRs 2148–2151. Figure from publication.

Researchers analyzed synoptic vector magnetograms built with data from the Vector Spectromagnetograph (VSM) instrument on the Synoptic Optical Long-term Investigations of the Sun (SOLIS) telescope during January 2010 - July 2016, hence covering a large fraction of the solar cycle 24. Our study includes the total of 74 synoptic Carrington rotation maps. We recover here bihelical spectra at different phases of solar cycle 24, where the net magnetic helicity in the majority of the data is consistent with a large-scale dynamo with helical turbulence operating in the Sun. More than 20 precent of the analyzed maps, however, show violations of the expected sign rule. 

Link to the publication

Astroinformatics

Astroinformatics (external link)

Simulations of turbulence and magnetism in astrophysical objects

Computer Science building front entrance, Aalto University, photo Matti Ahlgren / Tietotekniikan talon sisäänkäynti, Aalto-yliopisto

Department of Computer Science

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