The influence of helical background fields on current helicity and electromotive force of magnetoconvection

Leibniz-Institut für Astrophysik Potsdam, An der Sternwarte 16, 14482 Potsdam, Germany
e-mail: gruediger@aip.de; mkueker@aip.de

Received: 8 August 2015
Accepted: 29 April 2016

Abstract

Motivated by the empirical finding that the known hemispheric rules for the current helicity at the solar surface are not strict, we demonstrate the excitation of small-scale current helicity by the influence of large-scale helical magnetic background fields on nonrotating magnetoconvection. This is shown within a quasilinear analytic theory of driven turbulence and by nonlinear simulations of magnetoconvection that the resulting small-scale current helicity has the same sign as the large-scale current helicity, while the ratio of both pseudoscalars is of the order of the magnetic Reynolds number of the convection. The same models do not provide finite values of the small-scale kinetic helicity. On the other hand, a turbulence-induced electromotive force is produced including the diamagnetic pumping term, as well as the eddy diffusivity but, however, no α effect. It has thus been argued that the relations for the simultaneous existence of small-scale current helicity and α effect do not hold for the model of nonrotating magnetoconvection under consideration. Calculations for various values of the magnetic Prandtl number demonstrate that, for the considered diffusivities, the current helicity increases for growing magnetic Reynolds number, which is not true for the velocity of the diamagnetic pumping, which is in agreement with the results of the quasilinear analytical approximation.