Localized Nests of Convection in Rapidly Rotating Suns

Details Localized Nests of Convection in Rapidly Rotating Suns Localized Nests of Convection in Rapidly Rotating Suns

Jun 2006

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006spd....37.3205b&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, SPD meeting #37, #32.05; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 38, p.258

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

Many solar-like stars rotate more rapidly than the sun. Through their magnetized winds, these stars gradually lose angular momentum and spin down. By similar processes, our Sun must have rotated more rapidly in the past than it currently does. We explore the effects of more rapid rotation upon turbulent stellar convection, studying full spherical shells that admit global scale flows. We conduct 3-D simulations of compressible turbulent convection with the anelastic spherical harmonic (ASH) code on massively parallel supercomputers. For simplicity, we adopt the radial stratification of the present-day sun and examine global scale convection in a zone extending from 0.72 to 0.97 solar radii, and consider a range of rotation rates from 1 to 5 times the solar rotation rate. With increasing rotation we observe that convection at low latitudes becomes spatially modulated in strength, yielding localized nests of strong convection. These nests are persistent over very long periods and propagate in longitude at slower rates than individual convective structures within them. It is striking that a strong differential rotation is achieved by these modulated states. The convection at high latitudes is more isotropic but influenced by the meridional circulations present throughout the shell. Weak modulation can be recognized even at the solar rotation rate, with some implications for active magnetic longitudes in the Sun.

Affiliated with

Also associated with

No associations

Rating

Localized Nests of Convection in Rapidly Rotating Suns does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.

If you have personal experience with Localized Nests of Convection in Rapidly Rotating Suns, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Localized Nests of Convection in Rapidly Rotating Suns will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

Comments { 0 }

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-1329441