Bifurcation of poloidal field in the flow induced by a radial electric current (Q1317820)

A study is made of the steady-state flow of a viscous conducting incompressible fluid in a half-space, induced by an electric current spreading from a point source on a solid surface. There is a critical finite value of the current at which the velocity on the axis becomes infinite. It is shown that for a high-conductivity medium bifurcation of a new MHD regime with nonzero poloidal field and rotation takes place for arbitrarily large values of the current. The axisymmetric MHD dynamo effect detected does not contradict the Cowling-Braginskii ``antidynamo'' theorem, since the conditions of the theorem are not fulfilled.