Can we look inside a dynamo?

For a simple spherically symmetric mean-field dynamo model we investigate t he possibility of determining the radial dependence of the coefficient alph a. Growth rates for different magnetic field modes are assumed to be known by measurement. An evolutionary strategy (ES) is used for the solution of t he inverse problem. Numerically, we find quite different alpha -profiles gi ving nearly the same eigenvalues. The ES is also applied to find functions alpha (r) yielding zero growth rates for the lowest four magnetic field mod es. Additionally, a slight modification of the ES is utilized for an "energ etic" optimization of alpha (2)-dynamos. The consequences of our findings f or inverse dynamo theory and for the design of future dynamo experiments ar e discussed.