3,308 research outputs found
The spatio-temporal spectrum of turbulent flows
Identification and extraction of vortical structures and of waves in a
disorganised flow is a mayor challenge in the study of turbulence. We present a
study of the spatio-temporal behavior of turbulent flows in the presence of
different restitutive forces. We show how to compute and analyse the
spatio-temporal spectrum from data stemming from numerical simulations and from
laboratory experiments. Four cases are considered: homogeneous and isotropic
turbulence, rotating turbulence, stratified turbulence, and water wave
turbulence. For homogeneous and isotropic turbulence, the spectrum allows
identification of sweeping by the large scale flow. For rotating and for
stratified turbulence, the spectrum allows identification of the waves, precise
quantification of the energy in the waves and in the turbulent eddies, and
identification of physical mechanisms such as Doppler shift and wave absorption
in critical layers. Finally, in water wave turbulence the spectrum shows a
transition from gravity-capillary waves to bound waves as the amplitude of the
forcing is increased.Comment: Added new references and analysi
Slip line growth as a critical phenomenon
We study the growth of slip line in a plastically deforming crystal by
numerical simulation of a double-ended pile-up model with a dislocation source
at one end, and an absorbing wall at the other end. In presence of defects, the
pile-up undergoes a second order non-equilibrium phase transition as a function
of stress, which can be characterized by finite size scaling. We obtain a
complete set of critical exponents and scaling functions that describe the
spatiotemporal dynamics of the slip line. Our findings allow to reinterpret
earlier experiments on slip line kinematography as evidence of a dynamic
critical phenomenon.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Swimmers in thin films: from swarming to hydrodynamic instabilities
We investigate theoretically the collective dynamics of a suspension of low
Reynolds number swimmers that are confined to two dimensions by a thin fluid
film. Our model swimmer is characterized by internal degrees of freedom which
locally exert active stresses (force dipoles or quadrupoles) on the fluid. We
find that hydrodynamic interactions mediated by the film can give rise to
spontaneous continuous symmetry breaking (swarming), to states with either
polar or nematic homogeneous order. For dipolar swimmers, the stroke averaged
dynamics are enough to determine the leading contributions to the collective
behaviour. In contrast, for quadrupolar swimmers, our analysis shows that
detailed features of the internal dynamics play an important role in
determining the bulk behaviour. In the broken symmetry phases, we investigate
fluctuations of hydrodynamic variables of the system and find that these
destabilize order. Interestingly, this instability is not generic and depends
on length-scale.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, references added, typos corrected, new
introductio
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