Shear-current effect in a turbulent convection with a large-scale shear

The shear-current effect in a nonrotating homogeneous turbulent convection with a large-scale constant shear is studied. The large-scale velocity shear causes anisotropy of turbulent convection, which produces the mean electromotive force E(W) W×J and the mean electric current along the original mean magnetic field, where W is the background mean vorticity due to the shear and J is the mean electric current. This results in a large-scale dynamo even in a nonrotating and nonhelical homogeneous sheared turbulent convection, whereby the α effect vanishes. It is found that turbulent convection promotes the shear-current dynamo instability, i.e., the heat flux causes positive contribution to the shear-current effect. However, there is no dynamo action due to the shear-current effect for small hydrodynamic and magnetic Reynolds numbers even in a turbulent convection, if the spatial scaling for the turbulent correlation time is τ (k) k-2, where k is the small-scale wave number.