Context. For moderate and slow rotation, magnetic activity of solar-like stars is observed to strongly depend on rotation, while for rapid rotation, only a very weak or no dependency is detected. These observations do not yet have a solid explanation in terms of dynamo theory. Aims. To work towards such an explanation, we numerically investigated the rotational dependency of dynamo drivers in solar-like stars, that is, stars that have a convective envelope of similar thickness as in the Sun. Methods. We ran semi-global convection simulations of stars with rotation rates from 0 to 30 times the solar value, corresponding to Coriolis numbers, Co, of 0 to 110. We measured the turbulent transport coefficients describing the magnetic field evolution with the help of the test-field method, and compared with the dynamo effect arising from the differential rotation, self-consistently generated in the models.Results. The trace of the α tensor increases for moderate rotation rates with Co 0.5 and levels off for rapid rotation. This behavior is in agreement with the kinetic α based on the kinetic helicity, if one takes into account the decrease of the convective scale with increasing rotation. The α tensor becomes highly anisotropic for Co 1, α rr dominates for moderate rotation (1

The role of turbulent effects for dynamos in the Sun and stars continues to be debated. Mean-field (MF) theory provides a broadly used framework to connect these effects to fundamental magnetohydrodynamics. While inaccessible observationally, turbulent effects can be directly studied using global convective dynamo (GCD) simulations. We measure the turbulent effects in terms of turbulent transport coefficients, based on the MF framework, from an exemplary GCD simulation using the test-field method. These coefficients are then used as an input into an MF model. We find a good agreement between the MF and GCD solutions, which validates our theoretical approach. This agreement requires all turbulent effects to be included, even those which have been regarded as unimportant so far. Our results suggest that simple dynamo models, as are commonly used in the solar and stellar community, relying on very few, precisely fine-tuned turbulent effects, may not be representative of the full dynamics of dynamos in global convective simulations and astronomical objects.

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