Eur. Phys. J. B 22, 273-276 (2001)
https://doi.org/10.1007/s100510170103

Saturation of the magnetic field above the dynamo threshold

Laboratoire de Physique Statistique (UMR 8550, CNRS) , École Normale Supérieure, 24 rue Lhomond, 75005 Paris, France

Corresponding author: ^a fauve@physique.ens.fr

Received: 23 April 2001
Revised: 21 June 2001
Published online: 15 August 2001

Abstract

We show that the saturation level of the magnetic field generated by a fluid dynamo just above threshold, can be estimated using simple dimensional arguments when the flow is turbulent. We then discuss other scalings by considering the structure of the weakly nonlinear problem above the dynamo threshold. Finally, we compare these predictions with recent experimental results.