The decay of torque free toroidal magnetic fields confined beneath the solar convection zone

Calculation similar to those of Mestel and Moss (1983) are performed to investigate the decay of a toroidal field through configurations satisfying the torque free condition, imposed by the presence of a poloidal field of dipolar form confined beneath the solar convection zone. It is found that initially stable field configurations diffuse into unstable configurations on time-scales of order a few x 10⁸ yr. The results are similar to those of Tayler (1982) for a simpler field model without any dynamical constraints.