Alpha-unstable flows and the fast dynamo problem

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Zelati, Michele Coti, Sorella, Massimo, Villringer, David
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2025
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author Zelati, Michele Coti
Sorella, Massimo
Villringer, David
author_facet Zelati, Michele Coti
Sorella, Massimo
Villringer, David
contents We construct a time-independent, incompressible, and Lipschitz-continuous velocity field in $\mathbb{R}^3$ that generates a fast kinematic dynamo - an instability characterized by exponential growth of magnetic energy, independent of diffusivity. Specifically, we show that the associated vector transport-diffusion equation admits solutions that grow exponentially fast, uniformly in the vanishing diffusivity limit $\varepsilon\to 0$. Our construction is based on a periodic velocity field $U$ on $\mathbb{T}^3$, such as an Arnold-Beltrami-Childress flow, which satisfies a generic spectral instability property called alpha-instability, established via perturbation theory. This provides a rigorous mathematical framework for the alpha-effect, a mechanism conjectured in the late 1960s to drive large-scale magnetic field generation. By rescaling with respect to $\varepsilon$ and employing a Bloch-type theorem, we extend the solution to the whole space. Finally, through a gluing procedure that spatially localizes the instability, we construct a globally defined velocity field $u$ in $\mathbb{R}^3$ that drives the dynamo instability.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2504_00855
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Alpha-unstable flows and the fast dynamo problem
Zelati, Michele Coti
Sorella, Massimo
Villringer, David
Analysis of PDEs
35Q35
We construct a time-independent, incompressible, and Lipschitz-continuous velocity field in $\mathbb{R}^3$ that generates a fast kinematic dynamo - an instability characterized by exponential growth of magnetic energy, independent of diffusivity. Specifically, we show that the associated vector transport-diffusion equation admits solutions that grow exponentially fast, uniformly in the vanishing diffusivity limit $\varepsilon\to 0$. Our construction is based on a periodic velocity field $U$ on $\mathbb{T}^3$, such as an Arnold-Beltrami-Childress flow, which satisfies a generic spectral instability property called alpha-instability, established via perturbation theory. This provides a rigorous mathematical framework for the alpha-effect, a mechanism conjectured in the late 1960s to drive large-scale magnetic field generation. By rescaling with respect to $\varepsilon$ and employing a Bloch-type theorem, we extend the solution to the whole space. Finally, through a gluing procedure that spatially localizes the instability, we construct a globally defined velocity field $u$ in $\mathbb{R}^3$ that drives the dynamo instability.
title Alpha-unstable flows and the fast dynamo problem
topic Analysis of PDEs
35Q35
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.00855