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MHD relaxation of fossil magnetic fields in stellar interiors

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 August 2011

Stéphane Mathis ,
Vincent Duez  and
Jonathan Braithwaite
Stéphane Mathis
Affiliation:
Laboratoire AIM, CEA/DSM-CNRS-Université Paris Diderot, IRFU/SAp Centre de Saclay, F-91191 Gif-sur-Yvette, France email: [email protected] Observatoire de Paris-LESIA 5, place Jules Janssen, F-92195 Meudon Cedex
Vincent Duez
Affiliation:
Argelander Institut für Astronomie, Universität Bonn, Auf dem Hügel 71, D-53111 Bonn, Germany email: [email protected]; [email protected]
Jonathan Braithwaite
Affiliation:
Argelander Institut für Astronomie, Universität Bonn, Auf dem Hügel 71, D-53111 Bonn, Germany email: [email protected]; [email protected]
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Abstract

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The understanding of fossil fields origin, topology, and stability is one of the corner stones of the stellar magnetism theory. On one hand, since they survive on secular time scales, they may modify the structure and the evolution of their host stars. On the other hand, they must have a complex stable structure since it has been demonstrated that the simplest purely poloidal or toroidal fields are unstable on dynamical time scales. In this context, the only stable stellar configurations found today are those resulting from numerical simulations by Braithwaite and collaborators who studied the evolution of an initial stochastic magnetic field, which relaxes with a selective decay of magnetic helicity and energy, on mixed stable configurations (poloidal and toroidal) that seem to be in equilibrium and then diffuse. In this talk, we report the semi-analytical investigation of such an equilibrium field in the axisymmetric case. We use variational methods, which describe selective decay of magnetic helicity and energy during MHD relaxation, and we identify a supplementary invariant due to the stable stratification of stellar radiation zones. This leads to states that generalize force-free Taylor's relaxation states studied in plasma laboratory experiments that become non force-free in the stellar case. Moreover, astrophysical applications are presented and the stability of obtained configurations is studied.

Keywords

magnetohydrodynamics (MHD)plasmasstars: magnetic field
Type
Contributed Papers
Information
Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union , Volume 6 , Symposium S271: Astrophysical Dynamics: From Stars to Galaxies , June 2010 , pp. 270 - 278
Copyright
Copyright © International Astronomical Union 2011

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