Origin of lagrangian intermittency in drift-wave turbulence

The Lagrangian velocity statistics of dissipative drift-wave turbulence are investigated. For large values of the adiabaticity (or small collisionality), the probability density function of the Lagrangian acceleration shows exponential tails, as opposed to the stretched exponential or algebraic tails, generally observed for the highly intermittent acceleration of Navier-Stokes turbulence. This exponential distribution is shown to be a robust feature independent of the Reynolds number. For small adiabaticity, algebraic tails are observed, suggesting the strong influence of point-vortex-like dynamics on the acceleration. A causal connection is found between the shape of the probability density function and the autocorrelation of the norm of the acceleration.     

Long time tail correlations in discrete chaotic dynamics

A scaling relation is derived connecting the exponent of the algebraically decaying correlation and response functions with the degree of intermittency and the order of the maximum. It is universal, i.e. within a large class independent of the correlated variables. This implies universal 1/f-like spectra. The corrections to scaling are investigated, too.     

Curvature of lagrangian trajectories in turbulence

We report measurements of the curvature of Lagrangian trajectories in an intensely turbulent laboratory water flow measured with a high-speed particle-tracking system. The probability density function (PDF) of the instantaneous curvature is shown to have robust power-law tails. We propose a model for the instantaneous curvature PDF, assuming that the acceleration and velocity are uncorrelated Gaussian random variables, and show that our model reproduces the tails of our measured PDFs. We also predict the scaling of the most probable vorticity magnitude in turbulence, assuming Heisenberg-Yaglom scaling. Finally, we average the curvature along trajectories and show that, by removing the effects of large-scale flow reversals, the filtered curvature reveals the turbulent features.     

On the lagrangian turbulence in continua

Lagrangian turbulence in continua is introduced as a failure of euclidian metric of a material (frozen) system of coordinates. Criteria of such a turbulence for fluids and solids are derived.     

Observation of intermittency in wave turbulence

We report the observation of intermittency in gravity-capillary wave turbulence on the surface of mercury. We measure the temporal fluctuations of surface wave amplitude at a given location. We show that the shape of the probability density function of the local slope increments of the surface waves strongly changes across the time scales. The related structure functions and the flatness are found to be power laws of the time scale on more than one decade. The exponents of these power laws increase nonlinearly with the order of the structure function. All these observations show the intermittent nature of the increments of the local slope in wave turbulence. We discuss the possible origin of this intermittency.     

Dynamical anomalies and intermittency in burgers turbulence

We analyze the field theory of fully developed Burgers turbulence. Its key elements are shock fields, which characterize the singularity statistics of the velocity field. The shock fields enter an operator product expansion describing intermittency. The latter is found to be constrained by dynamical anomalies expressing finite dissipation in the inviscid limit. The link between dynamical anomalies and intermittency is argued to be important in a wider context of turbulence.     

Noise-driven intermittency in tidal dynamics

Summary The tide nonstationarity in the Adriatic Sea is described. We show how this phenomenon can be related to the stochasticity of sea fetch by a nonlinear noise-forced oscillator model. The experimental series correlation dimension reveals a strong lifting with respect to the astronomic tide. The lifting is related to space-time intermittency.     

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.     

Resonance decays,correlations and intermittency in hadronic collisions

We study a very simple model of correlations and intermittency of identical final state pions in hadronic collisions. Final state pions are either products of resonance decays or they are “directly” produced. The “direct” production is simulated by an immediate decay of a resonance. For “direct pions” forming about a half of final state pions and for formation times of resonances less than 0.5fin/c we get density of sources which via Hanbury-Brown and Twiss interference leads to correlations of two identical pions consistent with recent data and shows intermittency patterns for the second factorial moment. The essential ingredient of the scheme is the combination of pions from resonance decays and direct pions. Due to life-times of resonances taken from experiment, pions from resonance decays are responsible for short-range correlations in the longitudinal momentum, whereas directly produced pions, due to their fast production, dominate in the region of longitudinal momentum difference of the order of 100 MeV/c. The combination of both can give an approximate scaling leading to intermittency.     

Sound-wave coherence in atmospheric turbulence with intrinsic and global intermittency

The coherence function of sound waves propagating through an intermittently turbulent atmosphere is calculated theoretically. Intermittency mechanisms due to both the turbulent energy cascade (intrinsic intermittency) and spatially uneven production (global intermittency) are modeled using ensembles of quasiwavelets (QWs), which are analogous to turbulent eddies. The intrinsic intermittency is associated with decreasing spatial density (packing fraction) of the QWs with decreasing size. Global intermittency is introduced by allowing the local strength of the turbulence, as manifested by the amplitudes of the QWs, to vary in space according to superimposed Markov processes. The resulting turbulence spectrum is then used to evaluate the coherence function of a plane sound wave undergoing line-of-sight propagation. Predictions are made by a general simulation method and by an analytical derivation valid in the limit of Gaussian fluctuations in signal phase. It is shown that the average coherence function increases as a result of both intrinsic and global intermittency. When global intermittency is very strong, signal phase fluctuations become highly non-Gaussian and the average coherence is dominated by episodes with weak turbulence.     

Rotational intermittency and turbulence induced lift experienced by large particles in a turbulent flow

The motion of a large, neutrally buoyant, particle freely advected by a turbulent flow is determined experimentally. We demonstrate that both the translational and angular accelerations exhibit very wide probability distributions, a manifestation of intermittency. The orientation of the angular velocity with respect to the trajectory, as well as the translational acceleration conditioned on the spinning velocity, provides evidence of a lift force acting on the particle.     

Two-particle correlations and the origin of intermittency in muon-nucleon interactions

The relation between two-particle correlations, in particular the Bose-Einstein effect, and the intermittency signal is investigated in muon-nucleon scattering at 280 GeV using data of the European Muon Collaboration. From a comparison of the second factorial moments for unlike and negative charges with each other and with the predictions of the Lund model it is concluded that the observed intermittent behaviour is due to Bose-Einstein interference.