No Arabic abstract
At high Reynolds number, the interaction between two vortex tubes leads to intense velocity gradients, which are at the heart of fluid turbulence. This vorticity amplification comes about through two different instability mechanisms of the initial vortex tubes, assumed anti-parallel and with a mirror plane of symmetry. At moderate Reynolds number, the tubes destabilize via a Crow instability, with the nonlinear development leading to strong flattening of the cores into thin sheets. These sheets then break down into filaments which can repeat the process. At higher Reynolds number, the instability proceeds via the elliptical instability, producing vortex tubes that are perpendicular to the original tube directions. In this work, we demonstrate that these same transition between Crow and Elliptical instability occurs at moderate Reynolds number when we vary the initial angle $beta$ between two straight vortex tubes. We demonstrate that when the angle between the two tubes is close to $pi/2$, the interaction between tubes leads to the formation of thin vortex sheets. The subsequent breakdown of these sheets involves a twisting of the paired sheets, followed by the appearance of a localized cloud of small scale vortex structures. At smaller values of the angle $beta$ between the two tubes, the breakdown mechanism changes to an elliptic cascade-like mechanism. Whereas the interaction of two vortices depends on the initial condition, the rapid formation of fine-scales vortex structures appears to be a robust feature, possibly universal at very high Reynolds numbers.
We present results for the equilibrium statistics and dynamic evolution of moderately large ($n = {mathcal{O}}(10^2 - 10^3)$) numbers of interacting point vortices on the unit sphere under the constraint of zero mean angular momentum. We consider a binary gas consisting of equal numbers of vortices with positive and negative circulations. When the circulations are chosen to be proportional to $1/sqrt{n}$, the energy probability distribution function, $p(E)$, converges rapidly with $n$ to a function that has a single maximum, corresponding to a maximum in entropy. Ensemble-averaged wavenumber spectra of the nonsingular velocity field induced by the vortices exhibit the expected $k^{-1}$ behavior at small scales for all energies. The spectra at the largest scales vary continuously with the inverse temperature $beta$ of the system and show a transition from positively sloped to negatively sloped as $beta$ becomes negative. The dynamics are ergodic and, regardless of the initial configuration of the vortices, statistical measures simply relax towards microcanonical ensemble measures at all observed energies. As such, the direction of any cascade process measured by the evolution of the kinetic energy spectrum depends only on the relative differences between the initial spectrum and the ensemble mean spectrum at that energy; not on the energy, or temperature, of the system.
We study the relaxation of a topologically non-trivial vortex braid with zero net helicity in a barotropic fluid. The aim is to investigate the extent to which the topology of the vorticity field -- characterized by braided vorticity field lines -- determines the dynamics, particularly the asymptotic behaviour under vortex reconnection in an evolution at high Reynolds numbers 25,000. Analogous to the evolution of braided magnetic fields in plasma, we find that the relaxation of our vortex braid leads to a simplification of the topology into large-scale regions of opposite swirl, consistent with an inverse cascade of the helicity. The change of topology is facilitated by a cascade of vortex reconnection events. During this process the existence of regions of positive and negative kinetic helicity imposes a lower bound for the kinetic energy. For the enstrophy we derive analytically a lower bound given by the presence of unsigned kinetic helicity, which we confirm in our numerical experiments.
In a concurrent work, Villois et al. 2020 reported the evidence that vortex reconnections in quantum fluids follow an irreversible dynamics, namely vortices separate faster than they approach; such time-asymmetry is explained by using simple conservation arguments. In this work we develop further these theoretical considerations and provide a detailed study of the vortex reconnection process for all the possible geometrical configurations of the order parameter (superfluid) wave function. By matching the theoretical description of incompressible vortex filaments and the linear theory describing locally vortex reconnections, we determine quantitatively the linear momentum and energy exchanges between the incompressible (vortices) and the compressible (density waves) degrees of freedom of the superfluid. We show theoretically and corroborate numerically, why a unidirectional density pulse must be generated after the reconnection process and why only certain reconnecting angles, related to the rates of approach and separations, are allowed. Finally, some aspects concerning the conservation of centre-line helicity during the reconnection process are discussed.
Kraichnan seminal ideas on inverse cascades yielded new tools to study common phenomena in geophysical turbulent flows. In the atmosphere and the oceans, rotation and stratification result in a flow that can be approximated as two-dimensional at very large scales, but which requires considering three-dimensional effects to fully describe turbulent transport processes and non-linear phenomena. Motions can thus be classified into two classes: fast modes consisting of inertia-gravity waves, and slow quasi-geostrophic modes for which the Coriolis force and horizontal pressure gradients are close to balance. In this paper we review previous results on the strength of the inverse cascade in rotating and stratified flows, and then present new results on the effect of varying the strength of rotation and stratification (measured by the ratio $N/f$ of the Brunt-Vaisala frequency to the Coriolis frequency) on the amplitude of the waves and on the flow quasi-geostrophic behavior. We show that the inverse cascade is more efficient in the range of $N/f$ for which resonant triads do not exist, $1/2 le N/f le 2$. We then use the spatio-temporal spectrum, and characterization of the flow temporal and spatial scales, to show that in this range slow modes dominate the dynamics, while the strength of the waves (and their relevance in the flow dynamics) is weaker.
Results of direct numerical simulation of isotropic turbulence of surface gravity waves in the framework of Hamiltonian equations are presented. For the first time simultaneous formation of both direct and inverse cascades was observed in the framework of primordial dynamical equations. At the same time, strong long waves background was developed. It was shown, that obtained Kolmogorov spectra are very sensitive to the presence of this condensate. Such situation has to be typical for experimental wave tanks, flumes, and small lakes.