Dynamics of convection and dynamos in rotating spherical fluid shells

Numerical simulations of thermal convection in rapidly rotating spherical fluid shells have been carried out with and without magnetic fields generated by the dynamo process. Relaxation oscillations and localized convection activity represent coherent phenomena of turbulent convection in the absence of magnetic fields. In the presence of the latter, the coherent structures are destroyed and the heat transport is enhanced. With increasing Rayleigh number the magnetic energy tends to saturate and the magnetic field assumes an increasingly filamentary structure. (C) 2001 Published by The japan Society of Fluid Mechanics and Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.