Azimuthal convective rolls and the subsurface magnetic field

Abstract

The continual emergence of magnetic flux in solar active regions suggests that a substantial reservoir of flux is present somewhere beneath the photosphere. It has been proposed that this flux could be stored in an azimuthal field of order 3000 G residing in the lower portion of the convection zone. Such a field may be large enough to substantially influence the dynamics of the convection: linear stability analyses indicate that donut-like convective rolls having azimuthal symmetry might then be preferred to banana cells aligned with the rotation axis. Observational detections of such azimuthal rolls have been claimed.

The problem of pattern selection by convection in the presence of rotation and a horizontal magnetic field is examined here in a model system consisting of a planar Boussinesq fluid layer. Nonlinear solutions are obtained numerically. It is found that solutions consisting solely of donut cells can exist even at parameter values at which linear theory suggests that banana cells should be preferred instead. However, when the horizontal field decays below a critical value, banana cells may then grow. This leads to the destruction of the horizontal field and a permanent transition to banana cells.