Convective Plan Form Dynamos in a Layer

Abstract

We have explored in Chaps. 3 and 4 kinematic generation of the large-scale magnetic field by flows with a prescribed energy spectrum, that are synthesised from random-amplitude Fourier harmonics and model turbulent flows. In this chapter, following [1], we consider flows, which are, perhaps, more natural for a physicist and an experimenter—convective plan forms in an infinite horizontal plane layer of fluid. Such flows set in, when the difference of temperatures at the heated lower boundary and the upper boundary exceeds the critical value for the onset of thermal convection. We consider a finite-depth layer of fluid, and hence only horizontal slow variables can be introduced