Effects of latitudinally heterogeneous buoyancy flux conditions at the inner core boundary of an MHD dynamo in a rotating spherical shell

Numerical experiments on an MHD dynamo in a rotating spherical shell are performed in order to examine effects of latitudinally heterogeneous buoyancy flux conditions at the inner core boundary on the establishment of dynamo solutions. The Ekman number, the Prandtl number, and the ratio of the inner to outer radii are fixed as 10-3, 1, and 0.35, respectively. The magnetic Prandtl number is varied from 1 to 10, and the modified Rayleigh number is increased from 100 to 500. The electrically-conducting inner sphere is allowed to rotate rigidly around the rotation axis of the outer sphere at a different angular velocity. It is found that self-sustained dynamo solutions are obtained in the presence of a strong buoyancy flux around the equatorial regions or a homogeneous buoyancy flux, whereas a magnetic field does not develop spontaneously in all cases when a strong buoyancy flux is present around the polar regions. This difference in the development of the magnetic fields is considered to be affected by the different distributions of the mean zonal flow. In the case of the strong polar buoyancy flux, the direction of the mean zonal flow around the inner core is reversed due to the thermal wind balance and strong shear layer produced there. This shear may prevent the coherent growth of vortex columns and the magnetic field.