Effect of rotation on the tachoclinic transport.pdfVIP

c Astronomy Astrophysics manuscript no. 6864text ESO 2008 February 5, 2008 Effect of rotation on the tachoclinic transport Nicolas Leprovost and Eun-jin Kim 7 0 Department of Applied Mathematics, University of Sheffield, Sheffield S3 7RH, UK 0 2 Received / Accepted n a ABSTRACT J 9 Aims. We study the effect of rotation on sheared turbulence due to differential rotation in the solar tachocline. Methods. By solving quasi-linear equations for the fluctuating fields, we derive turbulence amplitude and turbulent transport coefficients 2 (turbulent viscosity and diffusivity), taking into account the effects of shear and rotation on turbulence. We focus on the regions of the v tachocline near the equator and the poles where rotation and shear are perpendicular and parallel, respectively. 4 Results. For parameter values typical of the tachocline, we show that the shear reduces both turbulence amplitude and transport, more 8 0 strongly in the radial direction (parallel to the shear) than in the horizontal one, resulting in anisotropic turbulence. Rotation further 2 reduces turbulence amplitude and transport at the equator whereas it does not have much effect near the pole. The interaction between 1 shear and rotation is shown to give rise to a novel non-diffusive flux of angular momentum (known as the Λ-effect), possibly offering a 6 mechanism for the occurrence of a strong shear region in the solar interior. Furt