2006/08/01 by F. Rincon, François Rincon · 1 citation
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Adaptive optics and wavefront sensing #Anisotropy #Boussinesq approximation (buoyancy) #Buoyancy #Convection #Convection zone #Fluid Dynamics and Turbulent Flows #Isotropy #K-epsilon turbulence model #Photosphere #Solar and Space Plasma Dynamics #Turbulence #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1017/s1743921307000117
published in Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union 2(S239), 58-63 (Cambridge University Press) · 6 pages, 3 figures -- To appear in the Proceedings of Symposium no. 239 "Convection in Astrophysics", International Astronomical Union., held 21-25 August, 2006 in Prague, Czech Republic
openalex publication_date 2006/08/01 · arxiv created 2006/11/28 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Abstract Classical theories of turbulence do not describe accurately inertial range scaling laws in turbulent convection and notably fail to model the shape of the turbulent spectrum of solar photospheric convection. To understand these discrepancies, a detailed study of scale-by-scale budgets in turbulent Rayleigh-Bénard convection is presented, with particular emphasis placed on anisotropy and inhomogeneity. A generalized Kolmogorov equation applying to convection is derived and its various terms are computed using numerical simulations of turbulent Boussinesq convection. The analysis of the isotropic part of the equation shows that the third-order velocity structure function is significantly affected by buoyancy forcing and large-scale inhomogeneities. Anisotropic contributions to this equation are also shown to be comparable to their isotropic counterpart at moderate to large scales. Implications of these results for convection in the solar photosphere, mesogranulation and supergranulation are discussed.