Large scale dissipation and filament instability in two-dimensional turbulence

Coherent vortices in two-dimensional turbulence induce far-field effects that stabilize vorticity filaments and inhibit the generation of new vortices. We show that the large-scale energy sink often included in numerical simulations of statistically stationary two-dimensional turbulence reduces the stabilizing role of the vortices, leading to filament instability and to continuous formation of new coherent vortices. This counterintuitive effect sheds new light on the mechanisms responsible for vortex formation in forced-dissipated two-dimensional turbulence, and it has significant impact on the temporal evolution of the vortex population in freely decaying turbulence. The time dependence of vortex statistics in the presence of a large-scale energy sink can be approximately described by a modified version of the scaling theory developed for small-scale dissipation.     

木星“大红斑”的实验室模拟

在我们建立的旋转浅水实验系统上进行了可重复的系列模拟实验,成功地观测到大尺度持续存在的涡旋的产生、漂移与演化。在一定条件下,呈现出一个自持的、长寿命的、沿与整体旋转方向相反方向漂移的反气旋孤立波涡旋（Rossby soliton),这就是木星“大红斑”的实验室模型。     

Long-lived planetary vortices and their evolution: Conservative intermediate geostrophic model

Large, long-lived vortices, surviving during many turnaround times and far longer than the dispersive linear Rossby wave packets, are abundant in planetary atmospheres and oceans. Nonlinear effects which prevent dispersive decay of intense cyclones and anticyclones and provide their self-propelling propagation are revised here using shallow water equations and their balanced approximations. The main physical mechanism allowing vortical structures to be long-lived in planetary fluid is the quick fluid rotation inside their cores which prevents growth in the amplitude of asymmetric circulation arising due to the beta-effect. Intense vortices of both signs survive essentially longer than the linear Rossby wave packet if their azimuthal velocity is much larger than the Rossby wave speed. However, in the long-time evolution, cyclonic and anticyclonic vortices behave essentially differently that is illustrated by the conservative intermediate geostrophic model. Asymmetric circulation governing vortex propagation is described by the azimuthal mode m=1 for the initial value problem as well as for steadily propagating solutions. Cyclonic vortices move west-poleward decaying gradually due to Rossby wave radiation while anticyclonic ones adjust to non-radiating solitary vortices. Slow weakening of an intense cyclone with decreasing of its size and shrinking of the core is described assuming zero azimuthal velocity outside the core while drifting poleward. The poleward tendency of the cyclone motion relative to the stirring flow corresponds to characteristic trajectories of tropical cyclones in the Earth's atmosphere. The asymmetry in dispersion-nonlinear properties of cyclones and anticyclones is thought to be one of the essential reasons for the observed predominance of anticyclones among long-lived vortices in the atmospheres of the giant planets and also among intrathermoclinic eddies in the ocean.     

Discrete-continuous reaction-diffusion model with mobile point-like sources and sinks

The European Physical Journal E - We study rotating stratified turbulence (RST) making use of numerical data stemming from a large parametric study varying the Reynolds, Froude and Rossby numbers,...     

On vortex entities of 2D turbulence in wavenumber space

To connect vortices in physical space and scales in wavenumber space, spectral definitions for vortex size and momentum are introduced within the framework of a probabilistic method. At a late stage of 2D decaying turbulence, a simple solution is given for the vortex position and momentum probabilities. From the solution, an energy spectrum E(k) for self-similar vortices is constructed, which is in agreement with that observed in numerical simulations. (c) 1995 American Institute of Physics.     

Rossby solitary vortices,on giant planets and in the laboratory

This is a review of laboratory experiments with a layer of shallow water having a free surface and rotating together with a vessel of parabolic form. Such a (rather original) setup has allowed one to create Rossby solitary vortex for the first time. The latter is an anticyclonic Rossby vortex not subjected to dispersive spread owing to its compensation by the nonlinearity of KdV type. By its structural, collisional, and other properties, including clear-cut cyclonic-anticyclonic asymmetry, it may be considered as a physical prototype of the large-scale long-lived anticyclonic Rossby vortices like the Great Red Spot of Jupiter or the Great Dark Spot of Neptune (this remarkable vortex was discovered by the spacecraft Voyager-2 during its farewell to the Solar System) and other vortices dominating in the atmospheres of giant planets and created by the unstable zonal flows. It has been shown that the vortex under study is a long-lived entity provided it satisfies "antitwisting condition," i.e., it has rather large amplitude (at which it rotates more quickly than it propagates and thereby carries the trapped fluid). In this case, it is not subjected to the "twisting" deformation and may be ascribed by the generalized Charney-Obukhov equation for Rossby vortices on shallow water with a free surface. The results of creating the vortex under consideration by the different methods have been compared with the results obtained by other authors in the experiments on shear-flow generation of Rossby vortices.     

Dust trapping in vortex pairs

The motion of tiny heavy particles transported in a co-rotating point vortex pair, with or without particle inertia and sedimentation, is investigated. The dynamics of non-inertial sedimenting particles is shown to be chaotic, under the combined effects of gravity and of the circular displacement of the vortices. This phenomenon is very sensitive to the particles’ inertia, if any. By using a nearly hamiltonian dynamical system theory for the particles’ motion equation written in the rotating reference frame, one can show that small inertia terms of the particles’ motion equation strongly modify the Melnikov function of the homoclinic trajectories and heteroclinic cycles of the unperturbed system, as soon as the particles’ response time is of the order of the settling time (Froude number of order unity). The critical Froude number above which chaotic motion vanishes and a regular centrifugation takes place is obtained from this Melnikov analysis and compared to numerical simulations. Particles with a finite inertia, and in the absence of gravity, are not necessarily centrifuged away from the vortex system. Indeed, these particles can have various equilibrium positions in the rotating reference frame, like the Lagrange points of celestial mechanics, according to whether their Stokes number is smaller or larger than some critical value. An analytical stability analysis reveals that two of these points are stable attracting points, so that permanent trapping can occur for inertial particles injected in an isolated co-rotating vortex pair. Particle trapping is observed to persist when viscosity, and therefore vortex coalescence, is taken into account. Numerical experiments at large but finite Reynolds number show that particles can indeed be trapped temporarily during vortex roll-up, and are eventually centrifuged away once vortex coalescence occurs.     

Viscoelastic effects on asymmetric two‐dimensional vortex patterns in a strongly coupled dusty plasma

Strongly coupled dusty plasma medium is often described as a viscoelastic fluid that retains its memory. In a flowing dusty plasma medium, vortices of different sizes appear when the flow does not remain laminar. The vortices also merge to transfer energy between different scales. In the present work, we study the effect of viscoelasticity and compressibility over a localized vortex structure and multiple rotational vortices in a strongly coupled viscoelastic dusty plasma medium. In case of single rotating vortex flow, a transverse wave is generated from the localized vortex source and the evolution time of generated waves is found to be reduced due to finite viscoelasticity and compressibility of the medium. It is found that the viscoelasticity suppresses the dispersion of vorticity. In the presence of multiple vortices, we find, the vortex mergers get highly affected in the presence of memory effect of the fluid, and thus the dynamics of the medium gets completely altered compared to a non‐viscoelastic fluid. For a compressible fluid, viscoelasticity dampens the energy in the sonic waves generated in the medium. Thus a highly viscoelastic and compressible fluid, in some cases, behaves similarly to an incompressible viscoelastic fluid. The wave‐front like rings propagate in elliptical orbits keeping the footprint of the earlier position of the point‐vortex. The rings collide with each other even within the patch vortex region forming regions of high vorticity at the point of intersection and pass through each other.     

Centrifugal-dissipative instability of Rossby vortices and their cyclonic-anticyclonic asymmetry

A new linear centrifugal-dissipative mechanism is proposed that explains the vortex asymmetry observed, in particular, in the structure of low-frequency anticyclonic Rossby vortices. It is shown that the relevant centrifugal-dissipative instability, which spontaneously breaks the chiral symmetry of the vortices, takes place only in the range ω<Ω, where ω is the frequency of small oscillations corresponding to the effective solid-body rotation of a vortex and Ω is the rotation rate of a noninertial frame of reference. The onset of the instability is associated with the existence of an optimum magnitude of the frictional force. In the vortex model based on a two-dimensional oscillator with the natural frequency ω in a noninertial reference frame rotating at the rate Ω, the instability shows up as an exponential increase in the total angular momentum. It is noted that the centrifugal dissipative instability may also manifest itself in the seismically active regions of the world.     

Some remarks on coherent structures out of chaos in planetary atmospheres and oceans

In the context of planetary atmospheres and oceans, it is natural to define "coherent structures" as "long-lived," or "solitary," Rossby vortices. These can be described by the generalized Charney-Obukhov equation (in fluid dynamics) or the analogous generalized Hasegawa-Mima equation (in plasma physics). These two equations contain KdV-type nonlinearities which (together with the compensating dispersive spreading) determine the formation of the coherent structures and explain the clear-cut cyclonic/anticyclonic asymmetry observed experimentally in long-lived planetary Rossby vortices. Examples are given of natural vortices which are (and which are not) coherent structures.     

具有面内四极磁场的旋转玻色-爱因斯坦凝聚体的基态结构研究

通过虚时演化方法研究了具有面内四极磁场的旋转玻色-爱因斯坦凝聚体的基态结构.结果发现:面内四极磁场和旋转双重作用可导致中央Mermin-Ho涡旋的产生;随着磁场梯度增强,Mermin-Ho涡旋周围环绕的涡旋趋向对称化排布;在四极磁场下,密度相互作用和自旋交换相互作用作为体系的调控参数,可以控制Mermin-Ho涡旋周围的涡旋数目;该体系自旋结构中存在双曲型meron和half-skyrmion两种拓扑结构.     

Vortices in a Rotating Spin-Orbit-Coupled Bose-Einstein Condensate under Extreme Elongation in a Harmonic Plus Quartic Trap

We consider the ground-state properties of a rotating spin-orbit-coupled Bose-Einstein condensate under extreme elongation in a harmonic plus quartic potential. The effects of spin-orbit coupling and rotation on the ground-state vortex structures are investigated. In the absence of spin-orbit coupling, new nucleated vortices gradually form vortex lines and annular vortex structures with the increase of the rotation frequency. In the presence of spin-orbit coupling, part of the vortices arrange in a line and form a stable vortex chain, and the remanent vortices coexist in pairs aside such vortex chain. More specially, the remanent vortices of each component repel each other and form vortex pair for isotropic spin-orbit coupling, while attract each other and locate in the same positions for anisotropic spin-orbit coupling.     

Vortices in Bose-Einstein condensates: A review of the experimental results

Rotating dilute Bose-Einstein condensates (BEC) of alkali atoms offer a testing ground for theories of vortices in weakly interacting superfluids. In a rotating super-fluid, quantised vortices, with a vorticity h/m, form above a critical velocity. Such vortices have been generated in BEC of alkali atoms by different techniques such as (a) wave function engineering of a two-component BEC, (b) decay of solitons, (c) rotation of a thermal cloud before cooling it below the condensation temperature, (d) stirring with an ‘optical’ spoon, (e) rotating a deformation in the anisotropic trap in which the condensate is trapped and (f) by creating Berry phase by adiabatically reversing the axial magnetic field. Since the core of a vortex is a fraction of a micrometer in diameter, it cannot be directly imaged optically. The condensate with vortices is allowed to ballistically expand till the size increases by one order before the vortices are imaged. Surface wave spectroscopy and the change in aspect ratio of a rotating cloud are the other techniques used. Studies have been made on the creation and dynamics of single vortex and on systems with more than a hundred vortices. Results have been obtained on vortex nucleation, stability of vortex structures, nature of the vortex lattice and defects in such a lattice. Important results are: (a) evidence exists that vortex nucleation takes place by a surface mode instability; but this is not the only mechanism; (b) the vortex lattice is perfectly triangular right up to the edge; (c) in the initial stages of rotation of the cloud a tangled web of vortices is seen; it takes a few hundred milliseconds before the vortices arrange themselves in a lattice; this time appears to be independent of temperature; (d) the decay of vortices appears to arise from the transfer of energy to the rotating thermal component and is dependent on temperature; (e) defects in the lattices such as dislocations and grain boundaries are seen; (f) transverse oscillations (Tkachenko modes) of the vortex lattice have been observed; and (g) giant vortices have been produced. These will be discussed.     

Velocity statistics distinguish quantum turbulence from classical turbulence

By analyzing trajectories of solid hydrogen tracers, we find that the distributions of velocity in decaying quantum turbulence in superfluid 4He are strongly non-Gaussian with 1/v(3) power-law tails. These features differ from the near-Gaussian statistics of homogenous and isotropic turbulence of classical fluids. We examine the dynamics of many events of reconnection between quantized vortices and show by simple scaling arguments that they produce the observed power-law tails.     

Stability of giant vortices in quantum liquids

We show how giant vortices can be stabilized for strong external potentials in Bose-Einstein condensates. We illustrate the formation of these vortices thanks to the Ginzburg-Landau dissipative dynamics for two typical potentials in two spatial dimensions. The giant vortex stability is studied for the particular case of a rotating cylindrical hard wall. Due to axial symmetry the minimization of the perturbed energy is simplified into a one dimensional relaxation dynamics. Solving this 1D minimization problem, we observe that giant vortices are either never stable, or only stable in a finite frequency range. Finally we obtain the marginal curve for the minimum frequency needed to observe a giant vortex.     

Giant vortex lattice deformations in rapidly rotating bose-einstein condensates

We have performed numerical simulations of giant vortex structures in rapidly rotating Bose-Einstein condensates within the Gross-Pitaevskii formalism. We reproduce the qualitative features, such as oscillation of the giant vortex core area, formation of toroidal density hole, and the precession of giant vortices, observed in the recent experiment [Phys. Rev. Lett., ()]]. We provide a mechanism which quantitatively explains the observed core oscillation phenomenon. We demonstrate the clear distinction between the mechanism of atom removal and a repulsive pinning potential in creating giant vortices. In addition, we have been able to simulate the transverse Tkachenko vortex lattice vibrations.