Compression of magnetic field in a viscous boundary layer

Galloway, Proctor, and Weiss have shown by numerical experiment that the magnetic field extending across a convective cell in a highly conducting viscous fluid may be concentrated into sheets with energy density B2/8π larger than the kinetic energy density 1/2pv2 of the convection by a factor (ν/eta)sup(1/2) or more. This paper employs conventional boundary layer theory for high Reynolds number to provide a simple analytical example illustrating this remarkable effect of field concentration. (orig.)