Role of soft-iron impellers on the mode selection in the VKS dynamo experiment

A crucial point for the understanding of the von-Karman-Sodium (VKS) dynamo experiment is the influence of soft-iron impellers. We present numerical simulations of a VKS-like dynamo with a localized permeability distribution that resembles the shape of the flow driving impellers. It is shown that the presence of soft-iron material essentially determines the dynamo process in the VKS experiment. An axisymmetric magnetic field mode can be explained by the combined action of the soft-iron disk and a rather small $\alpha$-effect parametrizing the induction effects of unresolved small scale flow fluctuations.