2005/01/26 by F. Rincon, F. Lignières, F. Lignieres +1 · 33 citations
Engineering · Environmental Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Classical mechanics #Convection #Fluid Dynamics and Turbulent Flows #Mechanics #Mesoscale meteorology #Meteorology #Physics #Plant Water Relations and Carbon Dynamics #Polytropic process #Solar and Space Plasma Dynamics #Turbulence #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1051/0004-6361:200400130
published in Astronomy and Astrophysics 430(3), L57-L60 (EDP Sciences) · 5 pages, 7 figures (reduced quality) -- published in A&A in 2005 but not uploaded to the arxiv
openalex publication_date 2005/01/26 · arxiv created 2006/11/28 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We present the results of a very large aspect ratio () numerical simulation of fully compressible turbulent convection in a polytropic atmosphere, and focus on the properties of large-scale flows. Mesoscale patterns dominate the turbulent energy spectrum. We show that these structures, which had already been observed in Boussinesq simulations by [CITE], have a genuine convective origin and do not result directly from collective interactions of the smaller scales of the flow, even though their growth is strongly affected by nonlinear transfers. If this result is relevant to the solar photosphere, it suggests that the dominant convective mode below the Sun's surface may be at mesoscales.