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Science 8 September 1995:
Vol. 269. no. 5229, pp. 1370 - 1379
DOI: 10.1126/science.269.5229.1370
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Articles

Turbulent Dynamics in the Solar Convection Zone

Nicholas Brummell 1, Juri Toomre 1, and Fausto Cattaneo 2

1 Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics and the Department of Astrophysical, Planetary and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309-0440, USA.
2 Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Chicago, 5640 South Ellis Avenue, Chicago, IL 60637, USA.

Observations of the sun reveal highly complex flows and magnetic structures that must result from turbulent convection in the solar envelope. A remarkable degree of large-scale coherence emerges from the small-scale turbulent dynamics, as seen in the cycles of magnetic activity and in the differential rotation profile of this star. High-performance computing now permits numerical simulations of compressible turbulence and magnetohydrodynamics with sufficient resolution to show that compact structures of vorticity and magnetic fields can coexist with larger scales. Such structured turbulence is yielding transport properties for heat and angular momentum at considerable variance with earlier models. These simulations are elucidating the coupling of turbulent fluid motions with rotation and magnetic fields, which must control the interlinked differential rotation and magnetic dynamo action.


THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Keplerian Complexity: Numerical Simulations of Accretion Disk Transport.
J. F. Hawley (1995)
Science 269, 1365-1370
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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)