Synchronized helicity oscillations: a link between planetary tides and the solar cycle?

F. Stefani, A. Giesecke, N. Weber, T. Weier
(Submitted on 30 Nov 2015)

Recent years have seen an increased interest in the question whether the gravitational action of planets could have an influence on the solar dynamo. Without discussing the observational validity of the claimed correlations, we ask for a possible physical mechanism which might link the weak planetary forces with solar dynamo action. We focus on the helicity oscillations which were recently found in simulations of the current-driven, kink-type Tayler instability which is characterized by an m=1 azimuthal dependence. We show how these helicity oscillations can be resonantly excited by some m=2 perturbation that reflects a tidal oscillation. Specifically, we speculate that the 11.07 years tidal oscillation induced by the Venus-Earth-Jupiter system may lead to a 1:1 resonant excitation of the oscillation of the alpha effect. Finally, in the framework of a reduced, zero-dimensional alpha-Omega dynamo model we recover a 22.14 years cycle of the solar dynamo.

Comments: 17 pages, 7 figures
Subjects: Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR)
Cite as: arXiv:1511.09335 [astro-ph.SR] (or arXiv:1511.09335v1 [astro-ph.SR] for this version)
Submission history
From: Frank Stefani
[v1] Mon, 30 Nov 2015 14:46:16 GMT (763kb)
http://arxiv.org/abs/1511.09335