SIMULATIONS OF TURBULENT DYNAMOS DRIVEN BY THE MAGNETIC HELICITY FLUX

Abstract

We present results of numerical simulations of driven magnetohydrodynamic turbulence in a periodic box with an imposed large-scale sinusoidal shear. We produce strong large-scale magnetic fields through dynamo action. This dynamo action is highly dependent on the spectral properties of the forcing function. In particular, we can produce either dynamo or antidynamo action by choosing particular forcing functions for the small-scale turbulence. Our results show that the large-scale electromotive force is well correlated with the local accumulation of eddy-scale magnetic helicity. Conversely, the electromotive force is very weakly correlated with the large-scale magnetic field strength or its product with kinetic helicity. We argue that in these simulations large-scale dynamo action is driven by an inverse cascade of magnetic helicity, ultimately caused by the tendency of anisotropic turbulence to create a magnetic helicity flux.