A two-dimensional fluid, stirred at high wavenumbers and damped by both
viscosity and linear friction, is modeled by a statistical field theory. The
fluid's long-distance behavior is studied using renormalization-group (RG)
methods, as begun by Forster, Nelson, and Stephen [Phys. Rev. A 16, 732
(1977)]. With friction, which dissipates energy at low wavenumbers, one expects
a stationary inverse energy cascade for strong enough stirring. While such
developed turbulence is beyond the quantitative reach of perturbation theory, a
combination of exact and perturbative results suggests a coherent picture of
the inverse cascade. The zero-friction fluctuation-dissipation theorem (FDT) is
derived from a generalized time-reversal symmetry and implies zero anomalous
dimension for the velocity even when friction is present. Thus the Kolmogorov
scaling of the inverse cascade cannot be explained by any RG fixed point. The
beta function for the dimensionless coupling ghat is computed through two
loops; the ghat^3 term is positive, as already known, but the ghat^5 term is
negative. An ideal cascade requires a linear beta function for large ghat,
consistent with a Pad\'e approximant to the Borel transform. The conjecture
that the Kolmogorov spectrum arises from an RG flow through large ghat is
compatible with other results, but the accurate k^{-5/3} scaling is not
explained and the Kolmogorov constant is not estimated. The lack of scale
invariance should produce intermittency in high-order structure functions, as
observed in some but not all numerical simulations of the inverse cascade. When
analogous RG methods are applied to the one-dimensional Burgers equation using
an FDT-preserving dimensional continuation, equipartition is obtained instead
of a cascade--in agreement with simulations.Comment: 16 pages, 3 figures, REVTeX 4. Material added on energy flux,
intermittency, and comparison with Burgers equatio