Angular momentum transport by magnetoconvection and the magnetic modulation of the solar differential rotation

¹ Leibniz-Institut für Astrophysik Potsdam (AIP), An der Sternwarte 16, 14482 Potsdam, Germany
e-mail: gruediger@aip.de
² University of Potsdam, Institute of Physics and Astronomy, 14476 Potsdam, Germany

Received: 14 November 2020
Accepted: 18 March 2021

Abstract

In order to explain the variance of the solar rotation law during the activity minima and maxima, the angular momentum transport by rotating magnetoconvection is simulated in a convective box penetrated by an inclined azimuthal magnetic field. Turbulence-induced kinetic and magnetic stresses and the Lorentz force of the large-scale magnetic background field are the basic transporters of angular momentum. Without rotation, the sign of the magnetic stresses naturally depends on the signs of the field components as positive (negative) B_θB_ϕ transport the angular momentum poleward (equatorward). For fast enough rotation, however, the turbulence-originated Reynolds stresses start to dominate the transport of the angular momentum flux. The simulations show that positive ratios of the two meridional magnetic field components to the azimuthal field reduce the inward radial as well as the equatorward latitudinal transport, which result from hydrodynamic calculations. Only for B_θB_ϕ > 0 (generated by solar-type rotation laws with an accelerated equator) does the magnetic-influenced rotation at the solar surface prove to be flatter than the nonmagnetic profile together with the observed slight spin-down of the equator. The latter phenomenon does not appear for antisolar rotation with polar vortex as well as for rotation laws with prevailing radial shear.