Turbulence characteristics of the B\"{o}dewadt layer in a large enclosed rotor-stator system

A three-dimensional (3D) direct numerical simulation is combined with a laboratory study to describe the turbulent flow in an enclosed annular rotor-stator cavity characterized by a large aspect ratio G=(b-a)/h=18.32 and a small radius ratio a/b=0.152, where a and b are the inner and outer radii of the rotating disk and h is the interdisk spacing. The rotation rate Omega under consideration is equivalent to the rotational Reynolds number Re=Omegab2/nu=9.5 x 104, where nu is the kinematic viscosity of the fluid. This corresponds to a value at which an experiment carried out at the laboratory has shown that the stator boundary layer is turbulent, whereas the rotor boundary layer is still laminar. Comparisons of the 3D computed solution with velocity measurements have given good agreement for the mean and turbulent fields. The results enhance evidence of weak turbulence at this Reynolds number, by comparing the turbulence properties with available data in the literature. An approximately self-similar boundary layer behavior is observed along the stator side. The reduction of the structural parameter a1 under the typical value 0.15 and the variation in the wall-normal direction of the different characteristic angles show that this boundary layer is three-dimensional. A quadrant analysis of conditionally averaged velocities is performed to identify the contributions of different events (ejections and sweeps) on the Reynolds shear stress producing vortical structures. The asymmetries observed in the conditionally averaged quadrant analysis are dominated by Reynolds stress-producing events in this B\"{o}dewadt layer. Moreover, case 1 vortices (with a positive wall induced velocity) are found to be the major source of generation of special strong events, in agreement with the conclusions of Lygren and Andersson.Comment: 16 page

Two-dimensional matter-wave solitons and vortices in competing cubic-quintic nonlinear lattices

The nonlinear lattice---a new and nonlinear class of periodic potentials---was recently introduced to generate various nonlinear localized modes. Several attempts failed to stabilize two-dimensional (2D) solitons against their intrinsic critical collapse in Kerr media. Here, we provide a possibility for supporting 2D matter-wave solitons and vortices in an extended setting---the cubic and quintic model---by introducing another nonlinear lattice whose period is controllable and can be different from its cubic counterpart, to its quintic nonlinearity, therefore making a fully `nonlinear quasi-crystal'. A variational approximation based on Gaussian ansatz is developed for the fundamental solitons and in particular, their stability exactly follows the inverted \textit{Vakhitov-Kolokolov} stability criterion, whereas the vortex solitons are only studied by means of numerical methods. Stability regions for two types of localized mode---the fundamental and vortex solitons---are provided. A noteworthy feature of the localized solutions is that the vortex solitons are stable only when the period of the quintic nonlinear lattice is the same as the cubic one or when the quintic nonlinearity is constant, while the stable fundamental solitons can be created under looser conditions. Our physical setting (cubic-quintic model) is in the framework of the Gross-Pitaevskii equation (GPE) or nonlinear Schr\"{o}dinger equation, the predicted localized modes thus may be implemented in Bose-Einstein condensates and nonlinear optical media with tunable cubic and quintic nonlinearities.Comment: 8 pages,7 figures, Frontiers of Physics (In Press

Two-dimensional discrete solitons in rotating lattices

We introduce a two-dimensional (2D) discrete nonlinear Schr\"{o}dinger (DNLS) equation with self-attractive cubic nonlinearity in a rotating reference frame. The model applies to a Bose-Einstein condensate stirred by a rotating strong optical lattice, or light propagation in a twisted bundle of nonlinear fibers. Two species of localized states are constructed: off-axis fundamental solitons (FSs), placed at distance $R$ from the rotation pivot, and on-axis (R=0) vortex solitons (VSs), with vorticities $$ and 2. At a fixed value of rotation frequency $\Omega$, a stability interval for the FSs is found in terms of the lattice coupling constant $C$, , with monotonically decreasing $C_{\mathrm{cr}}(R)$. VSs with S=1 have a stability interval, \tilde{C}_{\mathrm{cr}%}^{(S=1)}(\Omega), which exists for $$ below a certain critical value, $\Omega_{\mathrm{cr}}^{(S=1)}$. This implies that the VSs with S=1 are \emph{destabilized} in the weak-coupling limit by the rotation. On the contrary, VSs with S=2, that are known to be unstable in the standard DNLS equation, with $\Omega =0$, are \emph{stabilized} by the rotation in region $0<C<C_{\mathrm{cr}}^{(S=2)}$%, with $C_{\mathrm{cr}}^{(S=2)}$ growing as a function of $\Omega$. Quadrupole and octupole on-axis solitons are considered too, their stability regions being weakly affected by $\Omega \neq 0$.Comment: To be published in Physical Review

Three-dimensional hybrid vortex solitons

We show, by means of numerical and analytical methods, that media with a repulsive nonlinearity which grows from the center to the periphery support a remarkable variety of previously unknown complex stationary and dynamical three-dimensional solitary-wave states. Peanut-shaped modulation profiles give rise to vertically symmetric and antisymmetric vortex states, and novel stationary hybrid states, built of top and bottom vortices with opposite topological charges, as well as robust dynamical hybrids, which feature stable precession of a vortex on top of a zero-vorticity base. The analysis reveals stability regions for symmetric, antisymmetric, and hybrid states. In addition, bead-shaped modulation profiles give rise to the first example of exact analytical solutions for stable three-dimensional vortex solitons. The predicted states may be realized in media with a controllable cubic nonlinearity, such as Bose-Einstein condensates.Comment: To appear in the New Journal of Physic

Unstaggered-staggered solitons on one- and two-dimensional two-component discrete nonlinear Schr\"{o}dinger lattices

We study coupled unstaggered-staggered soliton pairs emergent from a system of two coupled discrete nonlinear Schr\"{o}dinger (DNLS) equations with the self-attractive on-site self-phase-modulation nonlinearity, coupled by the repulsive cross-phase-modulation interaction, on 1D and 2D lattice domains. These mixed modes are of a "symbiotic" type, as each component in isolation may only carry ordinary unstaggered solitons. While most work on DNLS systems addressed symmetric on-site-centered fundamental solitons, these models give rise to a variety of other excited states, which may also be stable. The simplest among them are antisymmetric states in the form of discrete twisted solitons, which have no counterparts in the continuum limit. In the extension to 2D lattice domains, a natural counterpart of the twisted states are vortical solitons. We first introduce a variational approximation (VA) for the solitons, and then correct it numerically to construct exact stationary solutions, which are then used as initial conditions for simulations to check if the stationary states persist under time evolution. Two-component solutions obtained include (i) 1D fundamental-twisted and twisted-twisted soliton pairs, (ii) 2D fundamental-fundamental soliton pairs, and (iii) 2D vortical-vortical soliton pairs. We also highlight a variety of other transient dynamical regimes, such as breathers and amplitude death. The findings apply to modeling binary Bose-Einstein condensates, loaded in a deep lattice potential, with identical or different atomic masses of the two components, and arrays of bimodal optical waveguides.Comment: to be published in Communications in Nonlinear Science and Numerical Simulatio