On cosmic rotation

We overview our recent studies of cosmological models with expansion and global rotation. Problems of the early rotating models are discussed, and the class of new viable cosmologies is described in detail. Particular attention is paid to the observational effects of the cosmic rotation.Comment: 22 pages, Revte

Constraints on scalar diffusion anomaly in three-dimensional flows having bounded velocity gradients

This study is concerned with the decay behaviour of a passive scalar $\theta$ in three-dimensional flows having bounded velocity gradients. Given an initially smooth scalar distribution, the decay rate $d/dt$ of the scalar variance $$ is found to be bounded in terms of controlled physical parameters. Furthermore, in the zero diffusivity limit, $\kappa\to0$, this rate vanishes as $\kappa^{\alpha_0}$ if there exists an $\alpha_0\in(0,1]$ independent of $\kappa$ such that $<\infty$ for $\alpha\le\alpha_0$. This condition is satisfied if in the limit $\kappa\to0$, the variance spectrum $\Theta(k)$ remains steeper than $k^{-1}$ for large wave numbers $k$. When no such positive $\alpha_0$ exists, the scalar field may be said to become virtually singular. A plausible scenario consistent with Batchelor's theory is that $\Theta(k)$ becomes increasingly shallower for smaller $\kappa$, approaching the Batchelor scaling $k^{-1}$ in the limit $\kappa\to0$. For this classical case, the decay rate also vanishes, albeit more slowly -- like $(\ln P_r)^{-1}$, where $P_r$ is the Prandtl or Schmidt number. Hence, diffusion anomaly is ruled out for a broad range of scalar distribution, including power-law spectra no shallower than $k^{-1}$. The implication is that in order to have a $\kappa$-independent and non-vanishing decay rate, the variance at small scales must necessarily be greater than that allowed by the Batchelor spectrum. These results are discussed in the light of existing literature on the asymptotic exponential decay $\sim e^{-\gamma t}$, where $\gamma>0$ is independent of $\kappa$.Comment: 6-7 journal pages, no figures. accepted for publication by Phys. Fluid

Dynamics of automatic stations' descent in planetary atmospheres as means of measurement data control

Automatic stations descent in planetary atmospheres as means of measurement data contro

Inflation in Terms of a Viscous van der Waals Coupled Fluid

We propose to describe the acceleration of the universe by introducing a model of two coupled fluids. We focus on the accelerated expansion at the early stages. The inflationary expansion is described in terms of a van der Waals equation of state for the cosmic fluid, when account is taken of bulk viscosity. We assume that there is a weak interaction between the van der Waals fluid and the second component (matter). The gravitational equations for the energy densities of the two components are solved for a homogeneous and isotropic Friedmann-Robertson-Walker universe, and analytic expressions for the Hubble parameter are obtained. The slow-roll parameters, the spectral index, and the tensor-to-scalar ratio are calculated and compared with the most recent astronomical data from the Planck satellite. Given reasonable restriction on the parameters, the agreement with observations is favorable.Comment: 7 pages, no figures. To appear in Int. J. Geom. Meth. Mod. Phy

Comparative experimental study of local mixing of active and passive scalars in turbulent thermal convection

We investigate experimentally the statistical properties of active and passive scalar fields in turbulent Rayleigh-B\'{e}nard convection in water, at $Ra\sim10^{10}$. Both the local concentration of fluorescence dye and the local temperature are measured near the sidewall of a rectangular cell. It is found that, although they are advected by the same turbulent flow, the two scalars distribute differently. This difference is twofold, i.e. both the quantities themselves and their small-scale increments have different distributions. Our results show that there is a certain buoyant scale based on time domain, i.e. the Bolgiano time scale $t_B$, above which buoyancy effects are significant. Above $t_B$, temperature is active and is found to be more intermittent than concentration, which is passive. This suggests that the active scalar possesses a higher level of intermittency in turbulent thermal convection. It is further found that the mixing of both scalar fields are isotropic for scales larger than $t_B$ even though buoyancy acts on the fluid in the vertical direction. Below $t_B$, temperature is passive and is found to be more anisotropic than concentration. But this higher degree of anisotropy is attributed to the higher diffusivity of temperature over that of concentration. From the simultaneous measurements of temperature and concentration, it is shown that two scalars have similar autocorrelation functions and there is a strong and positive correlation between them.Comment: 13 pages and 12 figure