The last decades witnessed a renewal of interest in the Burgers equation.
Much activities focused on extensions of the original one-dimensional
pressureless model introduced in the thirties by the Dutch scientist J.M.
Burgers, and more precisely on the problem of Burgers turbulence, that is the
study of the solutions to the one- or multi-dimensional Burgers equation with
random initial conditions or random forcing. Such work was frequently motivated
by new emerging applications of Burgers model to statistical physics,
cosmology, and fluid dynamics. Also Burgers turbulence appeared as one of the
simplest instances of a nonlinear system out of equilibrium. The study of
random Lagrangian systems, of stochastic partial differential equations and
their invariant measures, the theory of dynamical systems, the applications of
field theory to the understanding of dissipative anomalies and of multiscaling
in hydrodynamic turbulence have benefited significantly from progress in
Burgers turbulence. The aim of this review is to give a unified view of
selected work stemming from these rather diverse disciplines.Comment: Review Article, 49 pages, 43 figure