Convection in rotating non-uniformly stratified spherical fluid shells: a systematic parameter study

Convection in Rotating Spherical Fluid Shells

Convection driven by thermal buoyancy in rotating spherical bodies of fluid has long been recognized as a fundamental process in the understanding of the properties of planets and stars. Since these objects are rotating in general and since their evolution is associated with the transport of heat from their interiors convection influenced by the Coriolis force does indeed play a dominant role i...

Parameter dependences of convection-driven dynamos in rotating spherical fluid shells

For the understanding of planetary and stellar dynamos an overview of the major parameter dependences of convection driven dynamos in rotating spherical fluid shells is desirable. Although the computationally accessible parameter space is limited, earlier work is extended with emphasis on higher Prandtl numbers and uniform heat flux condition at the outer boundary. The transition from dynamos d...

“Unusual Properties of Convection and Dynamos in Rotating Spherical Shells”

Antisymmetric polar modes of thermal convection in rotating spherical fluid shells at high taylor numbers.

The onset of thermal convection in a rotating spherical shell of intermediate radius ratio eta=0.4 is studied numerically for Taylor numbers Ta > or = 10(11) and the Prandtl number of the liquid sodium (sigma=0.01). For the first time, it is shown that at very high Taylor numbers the first unstable mode can be antisymmetric with respect to the equator and confined inside a cylinder tangent to t...

Computational aspects of a code to study rotating turbulent convection in spherical shells

The coupling of highly turbulent convection with rotation within a full spherical shell geometry, such as in the solar convection zone, can be studied with the new anelastic spherical harmonic (ASH) code developed to exploit massively parallel architectures. Inter-processor transposes are used to ensure data locality in spectral transforms, a sophisticated load balancing algorithm is implemente...