Overshooting

Abstract: Overshooting occurs in stars when convective elements penetrate into adjacent radiative zones. In the Sun, it leads to the so-called `tachocline' at the base of the outer convection zone and this region is becoming a key ingredient of the standard solar dynamo model as strong toroidal magnetic fields may be generated there. However this overshoot is not predicted by the mixing-length theory of convection where convective elements must stop at the border of a convectively unstable region. I will review the main properties of this convective overshoot in stellar interiors, with in particular its subtle dependence with the thermal diffusion, and will present the most recent results obtained from 2-D and 3-D direct numerical simulations (DNS) of penetrative convection.