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Astronomy Colloquium
Dynamos and Magnetism in Rapidly Rotating Suns
Date: Tuesday, December 16th
Time: 3:30 pm
Place: 6515 Sterling Hall
Speaker: Ben Brown, University of Colorado
Abstract: When stars like our Sun are young, they rotate much faster than the Sun currently does. These rapidly rotating suns are observed to have strong magnetic fields, which likely arise from dynamo action in their turbulent convection zones. We explore stellar dynamos with 3-D simulations of turbulent convection in rotating spherical shells using the anelastic spherical harmonic (ASH) code. These simulated stars build strong magnetic fields in the bulk of their convection zone. This is in striking contrast to our understanding of the solar dynamo, where we think a tachocline of shear at the base of the convection zone is a crucial ingredient for the global-scale dynamo.
Host: Professor Ellen
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