Dynamo efficiency controlled by hydrodynamic bistability.

Hydrodynamic and magnetic behaviors in a modified experimental setup of the von Kármán sodium flow-where one disk has been replaced by a propeller-are investigated. When the rotation frequencies of the disk and the propeller are different, we show that the fully turbulent hydrodynamic flow undergoes a global bifurcation between two configurations. The bistability of these flow configurations is associated with the dynamics of the central shear layer.

Dynamo threshold detection in the von Kármán sodium experiment.

Predicting dynamo self-generation in liquid metal experiments has been an ongoing question for many years. In contrast to simple dynamical systems for which reliable techniques have been developed, the ability to predict the dynamo capacity of a flow and the estimate of the corresponding critical value of the magnetic Reynolds number (the control parameter of the instability) has been elusive, partly due to the high level of turbulent fluctuations of flows in such experiments (with kinetic Reynolds numbers in excess of 10(6)). We address these issues here, using the von Kármán sodium experiment and studying its response to an externally applied magnetic field.