Adrian Fraser, Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences, University of Colorado Boulder

Magnetic Instabilities in rapidly rotating, stably stratified cylinders

As stars evolve beyond their core-hydrogen-burning phase, angular momentum conservation suggests their contracting cores should spin up and their expanding envelopes should spin down. However, observations show a much smaller core-envelope rotation difference than expected, indicating some angular momentum transport in the stably stratified region between the core and envelope. One proposed source of transport is MHD turbulence driven by the Tayler instability, which combines with differential rotation to form the Tayler-Spruit dynamo (TSD). However, the extreme parameter regimes relevant to stellar interiors have confounded efforts to probe the properties of the TSD directly via numerical simulations. In this talk, I will discuss this issue and present preliminary results towards studying this system in rapidly rotation, stably stratified regimes.