On the origin of non-Gaussian statistics in hydrodynamic turbulence

Yi Li & Charles Meneveau
Department of Mechanical Engineering & Center for Environmental and Applied Fluid Mechanics, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore MD 21218

ABSTRACT: Turbulent flows are notoriously difficult to describe and understand based on first principles. One reason is that turbulence contains highly intermittent bursts of vorticity and strain-rate with highly non-Gaussian statistics. Quantitatively, intermittency is manifested in highly elongated tails in the probability density functions of the velocity increments between pairs of points. A long-standing open issue has been to predict the origins of intermittency and non-Gaussian statistics from the Navier-Stokes equations. Here we derive, from the Navier-Stokes equations, a simple nonlinear dynamical system for the Lagrangian evolution of longitudinal and transverse velocity increments. From this system we are able to show that the ubiquitous non-Gaussian tails in turbulence have their origin in the inherent self-amplification of longitudinal velocity increments, and cross amplification of the transverse velocity increments.

Phys. Rev. Letts. (2005), 95, 164502 .

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