Ill-posedness of the mean-field dynamo equations with a linear electromotive force

We show that the initial-value problem for the non-relativistic magnetic dynamo equation turns out to be ill-posed in L2 norm when the electromotive force depends linearly on the magnetic field. This result implies that the increasing of magnetic energy does not necessarily come from physical amplification mechanisms, since certain magnetic modes could arbitrarily grow as wave-frequency increases, despite any dynamo process. Thus, up to this order, the theory is not suitable for astrophysical simulations. We then study the case when electromotive forces are linear in magnetic field derivatives, showing that the resulting system has a well-posed problem. Finally, we apply the well-posed theory to the force-free regime, for which we find bounds for the corresponding magnetic energy analyzing the evolution of the magnetic helicity.