Effects of Turbulent Mixing on the Critical Behavior

Effects of strongly anisotropic turbulent mixing on the critical behavior are studied by means of the renormalization group. Two models are considered: the equilibrium model A, which describes purely relaxational dynamics of a nonconserved scalar order parameter, and the Gribov model, which describes the nonequilibrium phase transition between the absorbing and fluctuating states in a reaction-diffusion system. The velocity is modelled by the d-dimensional generalization of the random shear flow introduced by Avellaneda and Majda within the context of passive scalar advection. Existence of new nonequilibrium types of critical regimes (universality classes) is established.Comment: Talk given in the International Bogolyubov Conference "Problems of Theoretical and Mathematical Physics" (Moscow-Dubna, 21-27 August 2009

Effects of turbulent mixing on critical behaviour in the presence of compressibility: Renormalization group analysis of two models

Critical behaviour of two systems, subjected to the turbulent mixing, is studied by means of the field theoretic renormalization group. The first system, described by the equilibrium model A, corresponds to relaxational dynamics of a non-conserved order parameter. The second one is the strongly non-equilibrium reaction-diffusion system, known as Gribov process and equivalent to the Reggeon field theory. The turbulent mixing is modelled by the Kazantsev-Kraichnan "rapid-change" ensemble: time-decorrelated Gaussian velocity field with the power-like spectrum k^{-d-\xi}. Effects of compressibility of the fluid are studied. It is shown that, depending on the relation between the exponent \xi and the spatial dimension d, the both systems exhibit four different types of critical behaviour, associated with four possible fixed points of the renormalization group equations. The most interesting point corresponds to a new type of critical behaviour, in which the nonlinearity and turbulent mixing are both relevant, and the critical exponents depend on d, \xi and the degree of compressibility. For the both models, compressibility enhances the role of the nonlinear terms in the dynamical equations: the region in the d-\xi plane, where the new nontrivial regime is stable, is getting much wider as the degree of compressibility increases. In its turn, turbulent transfer becomes more efficient due to combined effects of the mixing and the nonlinear terms.Comment: 25 pages, 4 figure