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Title: Fluctuation dynamo and turbulent induction at small Prandtl number

Journal Article · · Physical Review. E, Statistical, Nonlinear, and Soft Matter Physics (Print)
 [1]
  1. Department of Applied Mathematics and Statistics and Department of Physics and Astronomy, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland 21218 (United States)

We study the Lagrangian mechanism of the fluctuation dynamo at zero Prandtl number and infinite magnetic Reynolds number, in the Kazantsev-Kraichnan model of white-noise advection. With a rough velocity field corresponding to a turbulent inertial range, flux freezing holds only in a stochastic sense. We show that field lines arriving to the same point which were initially separated by many resistive lengths are important to the dynamo. Magnetic vectors of the seed field that point parallel to the initial separation vector arrive anticorrelated and produce an 'antidynamo' effect. We also study the problem of 'magnetic induction' of a spatially uniform seed field. We find no essential distinction between this process and fluctuation dynamo, both producing the same growth rates and small-scale magnetic correlations. In the regime of very rough velocity fields where fluctuation dynamo fails, we obtain the induced magnetic energy spectra. We use these results to evaluate theories proposed for magnetic spectra in laboratory experiments of turbulent induction.

OSTI ID:
21464549
Journal Information:
Physical Review. E, Statistical, Nonlinear, and Soft Matter Physics (Print), Vol. 82, Issue 4; Other Information: DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevE.82.046314; (c) 2010 The American Physical Society; ISSN 1539-3755
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English