Super— and Counter—Rotating Jets and Vortices in Strongly Magnetic Spherical Couette Flow

Abstract

Spherical Couette flow is the flow induced in a spherical shell by fixing the outer sphere and rotating the inner one. Magnetic Couette flow is then the natural magnetohydrodynamic extension in which the fluid is taken to be electrically conducting, and a magnetic field is imposed. For the very strong fields we will consider here, the topology of this imposed field — which field lines thread both boundaries, and which only one or the other — turns out to be crucial. In this work we will therefore present a systematic survey of the possible field configurations, and in each case study the effect on the resulting flow.