Small-Scale Analysis of Hydrodynamical Helicity Suppression in the Mean-Field Dynamo-Model

Abstract

We compare the classical mean-field dynamo model proposed by Steenbeck, Krause, and Rädler to describe the generation of large-scale magnetic fields and the Kazantsev model that describes the small-scale dynamo in an unbounded homogeneous and isotropic flow. We consider the subcritical regime of small magnetic Reynolds numbers whereby there is no rapid generation. The same regime can also be understood as a process in which the small-scale generation is stopped due to its intrinsic mechanisms. Within both approaches we examine what distinguishes the spectra of the linear and nonlinear processes under the suppression of hydrodynamic (kinetic) helicity or, in other words, compare the alpha-quenchings. We check whether averaging the induction equation over scales larger than the velocity field correlation length leads to the loss of any features in the spectrum near the dissipative scale. We study the various types of dynamo stabilization using which seems more justified physically than the standard alpha-quenching, but more difficult within large-scale models containing limited information about the random velocity field. In particular, we compare the integral suppression whereby the total energy is conserved and the spectral suppression that suggests the conservation of energy and helicity in each spectral shell without assuming their redistribution over the spectrum.