New branch of the Tayler-Spruit dynamo in stellar radiative zones

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Barrère, Paul, Reboul-Salze, Alexis, Eggenberger, Patrick, Deheuvels, Sébastien, Rodriguez, Carolina, Marchand, Maxime
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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author Barrère, Paul
Reboul-Salze, Alexis
Eggenberger, Patrick
Deheuvels, Sébastien
Rodriguez, Carolina
Marchand, Maxime
author_facet Barrère, Paul
Reboul-Salze, Alexis
Eggenberger, Patrick
Deheuvels, Sébastien
Rodriguez, Carolina
Marchand, Maxime
contents The recent asteroseismic observations constitute a great challenge for rotating stellar evolution models, which predict too fast internal rotation rates when only hydrodynamic processes are included. This suggests the absence of one or several unidentified angular momentum transport processes in these models. Transport by large-scale and strong magnetic fields in the radiative zone is a promising candidate to explain the observations. While these fields may have a fossil origin, a dynamo driven by the Tayler instability in a shear flow constitute a primary mechanism to form the necessary magnetic fields. Despite recent numerical studies, this mechanism remains poorly known. Motivated by this, we investigate the Tayler-Spruit dynamo through a new set of three-dimensional direct numerical simulations. We model the radiative zone as a Boussinesq stably stratified fluid whose differential rotation is maintained by a volumetric body force. We report for the first time the existence of two bistable dynamo branches, which mainly differ by the magnetic field location (near the equator and the polar axis). While the equatorial branch is driven by the magnetorotational instability, we mainly investigate the newly identified polar branch, which is driven by the Tayler instability. We show that this branch can still operate and transport angular momentum efficiently in a very strong stratification regime. We extract new scaling laws for the different magnetic field components, transports processes, and the minimum shear to trigger the Tayler instability-driven dynamo. Finally, we roughly constrain the signature of the generated magnetic fields on asteroseismic modes propagating in main-sequence and evolved stars. Thus, our results fosters new studies using stellar evolution models including our prescriptions and the search of asteroseismic signals impacted by large-scale azimuthal magnetic fields.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2601_02129
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle New branch of the Tayler-Spruit dynamo in stellar radiative zones
Barrère, Paul
Reboul-Salze, Alexis
Eggenberger, Patrick
Deheuvels, Sébastien
Rodriguez, Carolina
Marchand, Maxime
Solar and Stellar Astrophysics
Fluid Dynamics
The recent asteroseismic observations constitute a great challenge for rotating stellar evolution models, which predict too fast internal rotation rates when only hydrodynamic processes are included. This suggests the absence of one or several unidentified angular momentum transport processes in these models. Transport by large-scale and strong magnetic fields in the radiative zone is a promising candidate to explain the observations. While these fields may have a fossil origin, a dynamo driven by the Tayler instability in a shear flow constitute a primary mechanism to form the necessary magnetic fields. Despite recent numerical studies, this mechanism remains poorly known. Motivated by this, we investigate the Tayler-Spruit dynamo through a new set of three-dimensional direct numerical simulations. We model the radiative zone as a Boussinesq stably stratified fluid whose differential rotation is maintained by a volumetric body force. We report for the first time the existence of two bistable dynamo branches, which mainly differ by the magnetic field location (near the equator and the polar axis). While the equatorial branch is driven by the magnetorotational instability, we mainly investigate the newly identified polar branch, which is driven by the Tayler instability. We show that this branch can still operate and transport angular momentum efficiently in a very strong stratification regime. We extract new scaling laws for the different magnetic field components, transports processes, and the minimum shear to trigger the Tayler instability-driven dynamo. Finally, we roughly constrain the signature of the generated magnetic fields on asteroseismic modes propagating in main-sequence and evolved stars. Thus, our results fosters new studies using stellar evolution models including our prescriptions and the search of asteroseismic signals impacted by large-scale azimuthal magnetic fields.
title New branch of the Tayler-Spruit dynamo in stellar radiative zones
topic Solar and Stellar Astrophysics
Fluid Dynamics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.02129