Rayleigh--Taylor turbulence in two dimensions

The first consistent phenomenological theory for two and three dimensional Rayleigh--Taylor (RT) turbulence has recently been presented by Chertkov [Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 91} 115001 (2003)]. By means of direct numerical simulations we confirm the spatio/temporal prediction of the theory in two dimensions and explore the breakdown of the phenomenological description due to intermittency effects. We show that small-scale statistics of velocity and temperature follow Bolgiano-Obukhov scaling. At the level of global observables we show that the time-dependent Nusselt and Reynolds numbers scale as the square root of the Rayleigh number. These results point to the conclusion that Rayleigh-Taylor turbulence in two and three dimensions, thanks to the absence of boundaries, provides a natural physical realization of the Kraichnan scaling regime hitherto associated with the elusive ``ultimate state of thermal convection''.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure

The large-scale structure of passive scalar turbulence

We investigate the large-scale statistics of a passive scalar transported by a turbulent velocity field. At scales larger than the characteristic lengthscale of scalar injection, yet smaller than the correlation length of the velocity, the advected field displays persistent long-range correlations due to the underlying turbulent velocity. These induce significant deviations from equilibrium statistics for high-order scalar correlations, despite the absence of scalar flux.Comment: 4 pages, 6 figure

Going forth and back in time: a fast and parsimonious algorithm for mixed initial/final-value problems

We present an efficient and parsimonious algorithm to solve mixed initial/final-value problems. The algorithm optimally limits the memory storage and the computational time requirements: with respect to a simple forward integration, the cost factor is only logarithmic in the number of time-steps. As an example, we discuss the solution of the final-value problem for a Fokker-Planck equation whose drift velocity solves a different initial-value problem -- a relevant issue in the context of turbulent scalar transport.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figure