New insights about meridional circulation dynamics from 3D MHD global simulations of solar convection and dynamo action

• Autor(a) principal: Passos, D.
• Data de Publicação: 2016
• Outros Autores: Charbonneau, P., Miesch, M. S.
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.1/9744

The solar meridional circulation is a "slow", large scale flow that transports magnetic field and plasma throughout the convection zone in the (r, theta) plane and plays a crucial role in controlling the magnetic cycle solutions presented by flux transport dynamo models. Observations indicate that this flow speed varies in anti-phase with the solar cycle at the solar surface. A possible explanation for the source of this variation is based on the fact that inflows into active regions alter the global surface pattern of the meridional circulation. In this work we examine the meridional circulation profile that emerges from a 3D global simulation of the solar convection zone, and its associated dynamics. We find that at the bottom of the convection zone, in the region where the toroidal magnetic field accumulates, the meridional circulation is highly modulated through the action of a magnetic torques and thus provides evidence for a new mechanism to explain the observed cyclic variations.