The stability of toroidal fields in stars

Max-Planck-Institut für Astrophysik, Karl-Schwarzschild-Straße 1, Postfach 1317, 85741 Garching, Germany e-mail: jon@mpa-garching.mpg.de

Received: 12 May 2004
Accepted: 21 March 2006

Abstract

We present numerical models of hydromagnetic instabilities under the conditions prevailing in a stably stratified, non-convective stellar interior, and compare them with previous results of analytic work on instabilities in purely toroidal fields. We confirm that an mode (“kink”) is the dominant instability in a toroidal field in which the field strength is proportional to distance from the axis, such as the field formed by the winding up of a weak field by differential rotation. We measure the growth rate of the instability as a function of field strength and rotation rate Ω, and investigate the effects of a stabilising thermal stratification as well as magnetic and thermal diffusion on the stability. Where comparison is computationally feasible, the results agree with analytic predictions.