The Mystery of the Sun's Magnetic Fields-Alpha and Omega?

Jan 09, 2013

How the Sun’s interior generates its magnetic field is a long-standing mystery for heliophysicists.

It is commonly believed that there is an electromagnetic dynamo inside the Sun. That dynamo has long been thought to be powered by two forces: the “stretching and winding” of magnetic fields due to the Sun’s differential rotation, or change in rotation rate, caused by differences in latitude, and the “twisting” of those fields because of rotational effects on structures rising up from deep in the Sun’s interior. The former is called “the omega effect” and the latter is called “the alpha effect”.

Until recently, those two forces were thought to be what powers the Sun’s magnetic field. Those movements through the Sun’s substance, as well as thermal convection due to the hypothetical radiation generated at the core, are required to be above a certain power threshold or the theory cannot be sustained.

According to a recent press release, researchers from New York University, Princeton University, the Max Planck Institute, and NASA have determined that the convective plasma flows in the Sun are 100 times too slow for the aforementioned phenomena to be generated.

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