Universality and saturation of intermittency in passive scalar turbulence

The statistical properties of a scalar field advected by the nonintermittent Navier-Stokes flow arising from a two-dimensional inverse energy cascade are investigated. The universality properties of the scalar field are probed by comparing the results obtained with two types of injection mechanisms. Scaling properties are shown to be universal, even though anisotropies injected at large scales persist down to the smallest scales and local isotropy is not fully restored. Scalar statistics is strongly intermittent and scaling exponents saturate to a constant for sufficiently high orders. This is observed also for the advection by a velocity field rapidly changing in time, pointing to the genericity of the phenomenon.

[1]  Gawedzki,et al.  Anomalous scaling of the passive scalar. , 1995, Physical review letters.

[2]  Robert H. Kraichnan,et al.  Passive Scalar: Scaling Exponents and Realizability , 1996, chao-dyn/9611007.

[3]  Katepalli R. Sreenivasan,et al.  On local isotropy of passive scalars in turbulent shear flows , 1991, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series A: Mathematical and Physical Sciences.

[4]  U. Frisch,et al.  Intermittency in Passive Scalar Advection , 1998, cond-mat/9802192.

[5]  M. Vergassola,et al.  Inverse energy cascade in two-dimensional turbulence: deviations from gaussian behavior , 1999, Physical review. E, Statistical physics, plasmas, fluids, and related interdisciplinary topics.

[6]  E. Balkovsky,et al.  INSTANTON FOR THE KRAICHNAN PASSIVE SCALAR PROBLEM , 1998, chao-dyn/9803018.

[7]  R. Kraichnan,et al.  Anomalous scaling of a randomly advected passive scalar. , 1994, Physical review letters.

[8]  M. Chertkov.  INSTANTON FOR RANDOM ADVECTION , 1997 .

[9]  P. Tabeling,et al.  Intermittency in the two-dimensional inverse cascade of energy: Experimental observations , 1998 .

[10]  V. Yakhot.  PASSIVE SCALAR ADVECTED BY A RAPIDLY CHANGING RANDOM VELOCITY FIELD : PROBABILITY DENSITY OF SCALAR DIFFERENCES , 1997 .

[11]  Laurent Mydlarski,et al.  Passive scalar statistics in high-Péclet-number grid turbulence , 1998, Journal of Fluid Mechanics.

[12]  Katepalli R. Sreenivasan,et al.  Extraction of Anisotropic Contributions in Turbulent Flows , 1998, chao-dyn/9804040.

[13]  Alain Pumir,et al.  A numerical study of the mixing of a passive scalar in three dimensions in the presence of a mean gradient , 1994 .

[14]  R. Kraichnan.  Inertial Ranges in Two‐Dimensional Turbulence , 1967 .

[15]  Eric D. Siggia,et al.  Turbulent Mixing of a Passive Scalar , 1994 .

[16]  P. Mestayer.  Local isotropy and anisotropy in a high-Reynolds-number turbulent boundary layer , 1982, Journal of Fluid Mechanics.

[17]  Luca Biferale,et al.  Disentangling Scaling Properties in Anisotropic and Inhomogeneous Turbulence. , 1999 .

[18]  Normal and anomalous scaling of the fourth-order correlation function of a randomly advected passive scalar. , 1995, Physical review. E, Statistical physics, plasmas, fluids, and related interdisciplinary topics.