Anomalous self-similarity in two-dimensional turbulence

2001/04/18 by Charles N. Baroud, Baroud, Charles N., Brendan B. Plapp +5 · 1 citation
Economics, Econometrics and Finance · Engineering · Environmental Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Climate variability and models #Complex Systems and Time Series Analysis #FOS: Physical sciences #Fluid Dynamics (physics.flu-dyn) #Fluid Dynamics and Turbulent Flows #physics.flu-dyn

paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.physics/0104055

11 pages, 5 figures

openalex publication_date 2001/04/18 · arxiv created 2001/07/27 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28

Abstract

Our velocity measurements on a quasi-two-dimensional turbulent flow in a rapidly rotating annulus yield an inverse cascade with E(k)~k^-2 rather than the expected E(k)~k^-5/3. The probability distribution functions for longitudinal velocity differences, δ_v(r)=v(x+r)-v(x), are self-similar (scale independent) but strongly non-Gaussian, which suggests that the coherent vortices play a significant role. The structure functions, ~r^ζ_p, exhibit anomalous scaling: ζ_p=p/2 rather than ζ_p=p/3 as in the 1941 Kolmogorov theory.

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