Large-scale toroidal magnetic field

Color rendering of the toroidal (zonally-oriented) magnetic field component in a magnetohydrodynamical simulation of solar convection, near time of cycle maximum. Red-Yellow corresponds to increasingly strong positive toroidal field (oriented in the direction of rotation) and Blue-Green to negative. On the outer sphere, the color scale codes the radial magnetic field component, of much smaller magnitude than the internal toroidal field. The field is concentrated deep in the interior, in aregion straddling the interface between the convectively unstable region and the underlying stably-stratified fluid layers. A few magnetic fieldlines are also plotted, showing that the field is primarily toroidal at this location at this phase of the cycle.

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Ghizaru, M., Charbonneau, P., et Smolarkiewicz, P.K., Magnetic cycles in a large eddy simulation of solar convection, The Astrophysical Journal Letters, 715, L133-L137; on ADS
Racine, E., Charbonneau, P., Ghizaru, M., Bouchat, A., et Smolarkiewicz, P.K., On the mode of dynamo action in a global large-eddy simulation of solar convection, The Astrophysical Journal, 735, id46; on ADS