[Home] ○ September 18th (Wed) Place 331, Building No.3, Grad. Sch. of Eng. (工学部 3 号館 331) contact Center for Computational Science Time 14:45-15:45 Speaker Peter A. Davidson Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge, UK Title Scaling laws for planetary dynamos Abstract We propose new scaling laws for the properties of planetary dynamos. In particular, the Rossby number, the magnetic Reynolds number, the ratio of magnetic to kinetic energy, the Ohmic dissipation timescale and the characteristic aspect ratio of the columnar convection cells are all predicted to be power-law functions of two observable quantities: the magnetic dipole moment and the planetary rotation rate. The resulting scaling laws constitute a somewhat modified version of those proposed by Christensen. The main difference is that, in view of the small value of the Rossby number in planetary cores, we insist that the non-linear inertial term, u・∇u, is negligible. This changes the exponents in the power-laws which relate the various properties of the fluid dynamo to the planetary dipole moment and rotation rate. These scaling laws are consistent with the available numerical evidence.