Growth of helicity in salt-finger convection in the two-dimensional three-component limit

Abstract

We present an analytical investigation of the global helicity budget associated with the salt-fingering instability within the two-dimensional, three-component framework. Our analysis shows that in the region of parameter space corresponding to salt-fingering, helicity amplification occurs when the Rayleigh ratio--quantifying the relative strength of salinity to temperature gradients--exceeds a critical threshold. This finding provides a possible theoretical explanation for the spontaneous emergence of helicity, observed in recent numerical simulations.

References in corpus (4)

• On the two-dimensionalization of quasistatic magnetohydrodynamic turbulence
• From two-dimensional to three-dimensional turbulence through two-dimensional three-component flows
• A reduced model for salt-finger convection in the small diffusivity ratio limit
• Spontaneous generation of helical flows by salt fingers