Using direct numerical simulations, we verify that "flow IV" of Roberts (1972) exhibits dynamo action dominated by horizontally averaged large-scale magnetic field. With the test-field method we compute the turbulent magnetic diffusivity and find that it is negative and overcomes the molecular diffusivity, thus explaining quantitatively the large-scale dynamo for magnetic Reynolds numbers above ≈ 8. As expected for a dynamo of this type, but contrary to α-effect dynamos, the two horizontal field components grow independently of each other and have arbitrary amplitude ratios and phase differences. Small length scales of the mean magnetic field are shown to be stabilized by the turbulent magnetic diffusivity becoming positive at larger wavenumbers. Oscillatory decaying or growing solutions have also been found in certain wavenumber intervals and sufficiently large values of the magnetic Reynolds number. For magnetic Reynolds numbers below ≈ 0.5 the turbulent magnetic diffusivity is confirmed to be positive, as expected for all incompressible flows. Earlier claims of a dynamo driven by a modified Taylor-Green flow through negative eddy diffusivity could not be confirmed.

We analyze the nature of dynamo action that produces horizontally averaged magnetic fields in two particular flows that were studied by Roberts (1972, Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A 271, 411), namely his flows II and III. They have zero kinetic helicity either pointwise (flow II), or on average (flow III). Using direct numerical simulations, we determine the onset conditions for dynamo action at moderate values of the magnetic Reynolds number. Using the test-field method, we show that the turbulent magnetic diffusivity is then positive for both flows. However, we demonstrate that for both flows large-scale dynamo action occurs through delayed transport. Mathematically speaking, the magnetic field at earlier times contributes to the electromotive force through the off-diagonal components of the α tensor such that a zero mean magnetic field becomes unstable to dynamo action. This represents a qualitatively new meanfield dynamo mechanism not previously described.