 Poloidal-toroidal decomposition

A spherical poloidal-toroidal decomposition represents a solenoidal vector field with zero flux through each sphere by scalar potentials $S,T$. The second term is tangent to concentric spheres; the first carries the radial component. Requiring zero angular means for the potentials fixes their otherwise irrelevant radial additions. In a plane layer, the analogous fluctuating components are $\nabla \times \nabla \times (\varphi \hat{\mathbf{z}})$ and $\nabla \times (\psi \hat{\mathbf{z}})$, with any horizontally uniform components handled separately. These constructions enforce the divergence-free condition because the divergence of a curl vanishes.

// Target: fluid-mechanics.bigb