3,916 research outputs found
Self-organization in turbulence as a route to order in plasma and fluids
Transitions from turbulence to order are studied experimentally in thin fluid
layers and magnetically confined toroidal plasma. It is shown that turbulence
self-organizes through the mechanism of spectral condensation. The spectral
redistribution of the turbulent energy leads to the reduction in the turbulence
level, generation of coherent flow, reduction in the particle diffusion and
increase in the system's energy. The higher order state is sustained via the
nonlocal spectral coupling of the linearly unstable spectral range to the
large-scale mean flow. The similarity of self-organization in two-dimensional
fluids and low-to-high confinement transitions in plasma suggests the
universality of the mechanism.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure
"Locally homogeneous turbulence" Is it an inconsistent framework?
In his first 1941 paper Kolmogorov assumed that the velocity has increments
which are homogeneous and independent of the velocity at a suitable reference
point. This assumption of local homogeneity is consistent with the nonlinear
dynamics only in an asymptotic sense when the reference point is far away. The
inconsistency is illustrated numerically using the Burgers equation.
Kolmogorov's derivation of the four-fifths law for the third-order structure
function and its anisotropic generalization are actually valid only for
homogeneous turbulence, but a local version due to Duchon and Robert still
holds. A Kolomogorov--Landau approach is proposed to handle the effect of
fluctuations in the large-scale velocity on small-scale statistical properties;
it is is only a mild extension of the 1941 theory and does not incorporate
intermittency effects.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure
Quantum Collapse and the Second Law of Thermodynamics
A heat engine undergoes a cyclic operation while in equilibrium with the net
result of conversion of heat into work. Quantum effects such as superposition
of states can improve an engine's efficiency by breaking detailed balance, but
this improvement comes at a cost due to excess entropy generated from collapse
of superpositions on measurement. We quantify these competing facets for a
quantum ratchet comprised of an ensemble of pairs of interacting two-level
atoms. We suggest that the measurement postulate of quantum mechanics is
intricately connected to the second law of thermodynamics. More precisely, if
quantum collapse is not inherently random, then the second law of
thermodynamics can be violated. Our results challenge the conventional approach
of simply quantifying quantum correlations as a thermodynamic work deficit.Comment: 11 pages, 2 figure
The Kelvin-wave cascade in the vortex filament model
The energy transfer mechanism in zero temperature superfluid turbulence of
helium-4 is still a widely debated topic. Currently, the main hypothesis is
that weakly nonlinear interacting Kelvin waves transfer energy to sufficiently
small scales such that energy is dissipated as heat via phonon excitations.
Theoretically, there are at least two proposed theories for Kelvin-wave
interactions. We perform the most comprehensive numerical simulation of weakly
nonlinear interacting Kelvin-waves to date and show, using a specially designed
numerical algorithm incorporating the full Biot-Savart equation, that our
results are consistent with nonlocal six-wave Kelvin wave interactions as
proposed by L'vov and Nazarenko.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figure
Shear Effects in Non-Homogeneous Turbulence
Motivated by recent experimental and numerical results, a simple unifying
picture of intermittency in turbulent shear flows is suggested. Integral
Structure Functions (ISF), taking into account explicitly the shear intensity,
are introduced on phenomenological grounds. ISF can exhibit a universal scaling
behavior, independent of the shear intensity. This picture is in satisfactory
agreement with both experimental and numerical data. Possible extension to
convective turbulence and implication on closure conditions for Large-Eddy
Simulation of non-homogeneous flows are briefly discussed.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure
Constraining the neutrino magnetic moment with anti-neutrinos from the Sun
We discuss the impact of different solar neutrino data on the
spin-flavor-precession (SFP) mechanism of neutrino conversion. We find that,
although detailed solar rates and spectra allow the SFP solution as a
sub-leading effect, the recent KamLAND constraint on the solar antineutrino
flux places stronger constraints to this mechanism. Moreover, we show that for
the case of random magnetic fields inside the Sun, one obtains a more stringent
constraint on the neutrino magnetic moment down to the level of \mu_\nu \lsim
few \times 10^{-12}\mu_B, similar to bounds obtained from star cooling.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures. Final version to appear in Phys. Rev. Let
A stochastic model of cascades in 2D turbulence
The dual cascade of energy and enstrophy in 2D turbulence cannot easily be
understood in terms of an analog to the Richardson-Kolmogorov scenario
describing the energy cascade in 3D turbulence. The coherent up- and downscale
fluxes points to non-locality of interactions in spectral space, and thus the
specific spatial structure of the flow could be important. Shell models, which
lack spacial structure and have only local interactions in spectral space,
indeed fail in reproducing the correct scaling for the inverse cascade of
energy. In order to exclude the possibility that non-locality of interactions
in spectral space is crucial for the dual cascade, we introduce a stochastic
spectral model of the cascades which is local in spectral space and which shows
the correct scaling for both the direct enstrophy - and the inverse energy
cascade.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure
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
. 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 , above which buoyancy effects are significant.
Above , 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 even though buoyancy acts on the fluid in the vertical direction.
Below , 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
Orbital roulette: a new method of gravity estimation from observed motions
The traditional way of estimating the gravitational field from observed
motions of test objects is based on the virial relation between their kinetic
and potential energy. We find a more efficient method. It is based on the
natural presumption that the objects are observed at a random moment of time
and therefore have random orbital time phases. The proposed estimator, which we
call "orbital roulette", checks the randomness of the phases. The method has
the following advantages: (1) It estimates accurately Keplerian (point-mass)
potentials as well as non-Keplerian potentials where the unknown gravitating
mass is distributed in space. (2) It is a complete statistical estimator: it
checks a trial potential and accepts it or rules it out with a certain
significance level; the best-fit measurement is thus supplemented with error
bars at any confidence level. (3) It needs no a priori assumptions about the
distribution of orbital parameters of the test bodies. We test our estimator
with Monte-Carlo-generated motions and demonstrate its efficiency. Useful
applications include the Galactic Center, dark-matter halo of the Galaxy, and
clusters of stars or galaxies.Comment: 30 pages, accepted to Ap
Highly turbulent solutions of LANS-alpha and their LES potential
We compute solutions of the Lagrangian-Averaged Navier-Stokes alpha-model
(LANS) for significantly higher Reynolds numbers (up to Re 8300) than have
previously been accomplished. This allows sufficient separation of scales to
observe a Navier-Stokes (NS) inertial range followed by a 2nd LANS inertial
range. The analysis of the third-order structure function scaling supports the
predicted l^3 scaling; it corresponds to a k^(-1) scaling of the energy
spectrum. The energy spectrum itself shows a different scaling which goes as
k^1. This latter spectrum is consistent with the absence of stretching in the
sub-filter scales due to the Taylor frozen-in hypothesis employed as a closure
in the derivation of LANS. These two scalings are conjectured to coexist in
different spatial portions of the flow. The l^3 (E(k) k^(-1)) scaling is
subdominant to k^1 in the energy spectrum, but the l^3 scaling is responsible
for the direct energy cascade, as no cascade can result from motions with no
internal degrees of freedom. We verify the prediction for the size of the LANS
attractor resulting from this scaling. From this, we give a methodology either
for arriving at grid-independent solutions for LANS, or for obtaining a
formulation of a LES optimal in the context of the alpha models. The fully
converged grid-independent LANS may not be the best approximation to a direct
numerical simulation of the NS equations since the minimum error is a balance
between truncation errors and the approximation error due to using LANS instead
of the primitive equations. Furthermore, the small-scale behavior of LANS
contributes to a reduction of flux at constant energy, leading to a shallower
energy spectrum for large alpha. These small-scale features, do not preclude
LANS to reproduce correctly the intermittency properties of high Re flow.Comment: 37 pages, 17 figure
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