DYNAMO MECHANISM VIA DIFFUSIVE FLOW

Abstract

A diffusive flow for plasma transport is proposed as a new mechanism for a dynmo. Cowling pointed out that a flow which has a velocity relative to the magnetic field line is essential to the mechanism of a dynamo. From this point of view, the fluid motion associated with the plasma diffusion across the magnetic field has the potential to be a good dynamo mechanism. When anomalous diffusion and classical resistivity are adopted for a sunspot plasma, it is found in the small size sunspot model that an inward diffusive flow can effectively amplify the magnetic field on a time scale comparable to the observed growth rate.