Samriddhi Sankar Ray

Hyperviscosity, Galerkin truncation and bottlenecks in turbulence

It is shown that the use of a high power alpha of the Laplacian in the dissipative term of hydrodynamical equations leads asymptotically to truncated inviscid conservative dynamics with a finite range of spatial Fourier modes. Those at large wave numbers thermalize, whereas modes at small wave numbers obey ordinary viscous dynamics [C. Cichowlas et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 95, 264502 (2005)10.1103/Phys. Rev. Lett. 95.264502]. The energy bottleneck observed for finite alpha may be interpreted as incomplete thermalization. Artifacts arising from models with alpha>1 are discussed.

Gravity-driven enhancement of heavy particle clustering in turbulent flow.

Heavy particles suspended in a turbulent flow settle faster than in a still fluid. This effect stems from a preferential sampling of the regions where the fluid flows downward and is quantified here as a function of the level of turbulence, of particle inertia, and of the ratio between gravity and turbulent accelerations. By using analytical methods and detailed, state-of-the-art numerical simulations, settling is shown to induce an effective horizontal two-dimensional dynamics that increases clustering and reduce relative velocities between particles. These two competing effects can either increase or decrease the geometrical collision rates between same-size particles and are crucial for realistic modeling of coalescing particles.

Extended self-similarity works for the Burgers equation and why

Extended self-similarity (ESS), a procedure that remarkably extends the range of scaling for structure functions in Navier-Stokes turbulence and thus allows improved determination of intermittency exponents, has never been fully explained. We show that ESS applies to Burgers turbulence at high Reynolds numbers and we give the theoretical explanation of the numerically observed improved scaling at both the IR and UV end, in total a gain of about three quarters of a decade: there is a reduction of subdominant contributions to scaling when going from the standard structure function representation to the ESS representation. We conjecture that a similar situation holds for three-dimensional incompressible turbulence and suggest ways of capturing subdominant contributions to scaling.

Statistical properties of turbulence: An overview

We present an introductory overview of several challenging problems in the statistical characterization of turbulence. We provide examples from fluid turbulence in three and two dimensions, from the turbulent advection of passive scalars, turbulence in the one-dimensional Burgers equation, and fluid turbulence in the presence of polymer additives.

Persistence problem in two-dimensional fluid turbulence.

We present a natural framework for studying the persistence problem in two-dimensional fluid turbulence by using the Okubo-Weiss parameter Λ to distinguish between vortical and extensional regions. We then use a direct numerical simulation of the two-dimensional, incompressible Navier-Stokes equation with Ekman friction to study probability distribution functions (PDFs) of the persistence times of vortical and extensional regions by employing both Eulerian and Lagrangian measurements. We find that, in the Eulerian case, the persistence-time PDFs have exponential tails; by contrast, this PDF for Lagrangian particles, in vortical regions, has a power-law tail with an exponent θ=2.9±0.2.

Intermittency in Fractal Fourier Hydrodynamics: Lessons from the Burgers Equation

We present theoretical and numerical results for the one-dimensional stochastically forced Burgers equation decimated on a fractal Fourier set of dimension D. We investigate the robustness of the energy transfer mechanism and of the small-scale statistical fluctuations by changing D. We find that a very small percentage of mode-reduction (D ≲ 1) is enough to destroy most of the characteristics of the original nondecimated equation. In particular, we observe a suppression of intermittent fluctuations for D < 1 and a quasisingular transition from the fully intermittent (D=1) to the nonintermittent case for D ≲ 1. Our results indicate that the existence of strong localized structures (shocks) in the one-dimensional Burgers equation is the result of highly entangled correlations amongst all Fourier modes.

The universality of dynamic multiscaling in homogeneous, isotropic Navier–Stokes and passive-scalar turbulence

We systematize the study of dynamic multiscaling of time-dependent structure functions in different models of passive-scalar and fluid turbulence. We show that, by suitably normalizing these structure functions, we can eliminate their dependence on the origin of time at which we start our measurements and that these normalized structure functions yield the same linear bridge relations that relate the dynamic-multiscaling and equal-time exponents for statistically steady turbulence. We show analytically, for both the Kraichnan model of passive-scalar turbulence and its shell model analogue, and numerically, for the Gledzer–Ohkitani–Yamada (GOY) shell model of fluid turbulence and a shell model for passive-scalar turbulence, that these exponents and bridge relations are the same for statistically steady and decaying turbulence. Thus, we provide strong evidence for dynamic universality, i.e. dynamic-multiscaling exponents do not depend on whether the turbulence decays or is statistically steady.

Lagrangian statistics for Navier-Stokes turbulence under Fourier-mode reduction : fractal and homogeneous decimations

We study small-scale and high-frequency turbulent fluctuations in three-dimensional flows under Fourier-mode reduction. The Navier-Stokes equations are evolved on a restricted set of modes, obtaine ...

Extreme fluctuations of the relative velocities between droplets in turbulent airflow

We compare experiments and direct numerical simulations to evaluate the accuracy of the Stokes-drag model, which is used widely in studies of inertial particles in turbulence. We focus on statistics at the dissipation scale and on extreme values of relative particle velocities for moderately inertial particles (St < 1). The probability distributions of relative velocities in the simulations were qualitatively similar to those in the experiments. The agreement improved with increasing Stokes number and decreasing relative velocity. Simulations underestimated the probability of extreme events, which suggests that the Stokes drag model misses important dynamics. Nevertheless, the scaling behavior of the extreme events in both the experiments and the simulations can be captured by the same multi-fractal model.

Abrupt growth of large aggregates by correlated coalescences in turbulent flow.

Smoluchowskis coagulation kinetics is here shown to fail when the coalescing species are dilute and transported by a turbulent flow. The intermittent Lagrangian motion involves correlated violent events that lead to an unexpected rapid occurrence of the largest particles. This new phenomena is here quantified in terms of the anomalous scaling of turbulent three-point motion, leading to significant corrections in macroscopic processes that are critically sensitive to the early-stage emergence of large embryonic aggregates, as in planet formation or rain precipitation.