Magnetoconvection

Abstract

In the outer layers of the Sun and other late-type stars thermal convection is affected by the presence of magnetic fields. This review deals principally with the interaction between convection and an externally imposed magnetic field in a Boussinesq fluid. Further effects of compressibility are considered briefly at the end. Magnetoconvection exhibits a particularly rich variety of behaviour when the ratio of the magnetic to the thermal diffusivity is small; the governing equations then allow both steady and oscillatory solutions. The authors' account provides a unified description of linear theory and of the interesting new results that are found in the non-linear regime. Recent work has classified the behaviour of isolated flux tubes and the relationship between time-dependent and steady solutions. Convection in a magnetic field is now the best-studied example of double-diffusive convection and serves as a guide to the behaviour of related systems.