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Register a new userVortex cluster arising from an axisymmetric inertial wave attractor
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We present an experimental study of the saturated non-linear dynamics of an inertial wave attractor in an axisymmetric geometrical setting. The experiments are carried out in a rotating ring-shaped fluid domain delimited by two vertical coaxial cylinders, a conical bottom, and a horizontal deformable upper lid as wave generator: the meridional cross-section of the fluid volume is a trapezium, while the horizontal cross-section is a ring. First, the fluid is set into a rigid-body rotation. Thereafter, forcing is introduced into the system via axisymmetric low-amplitude volume-conserving oscillatory motion of the upper lid. After a short transient of about 10 forcing periods, a quasi-linear regime is established, with an axisymmetric inertial wave attractor. The attractor is prone to instability: at long time-scale (order 100 forcing periods) a saturated fully non-linear regime develops as a consequence of an energy cascade draining energy towards a slow two-dimensional manifold represented by a regular polygonal system of axially-oriented cyclonic vortices that are slowly precessing around the inner cylinder. We show that this slow two-dimensional manifold manifests a persistent slow prograde motion and a strong cyclonic-anticyclonic asymmetry quantified by the time-evolution of the probability density function of the vertical vorticity.
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In this paper, we present an experimental study of weakly non-linear interaction of axisymmetric internal gravity waves in a resonant cavity, supported by theoretical considerations. Contrary to plane waves in Cartesian coordinates, for which self-interacting terms are null in a linear stratifiation, the non-linear self-interaction of an internal wave mode in axisymmetric geometry is found to be efficient at producing super-harmonics, i.e. waves whose frequencies are integer multiples of the excitation frequency. Due to the range of frequencies tested in our experiments, the first harmonic frequency is below the cut-off imposed by the stratification so the lowest harmonic created can always propagate. The study shows that the super-harmonic wave field is a sum of standing waves satisfying both the dispersion relation for internal waves and the boundary conditions imposed by the cavity walls, while conserving the axisymmetry.
Vortex breakdown phenomena in the axial vortices is an important feature which occurs frequently in geophysical flows (tornadoes and hurricanes) and in engineering flows (flow past delta wings, Von-Kerman vortex dynamo). We analyze helicity for axisymmetric vortex breakdown and propose a simplified formulation. For such cases, negative helicity is shown to conform to the vortex breakdown. A model problem has been analyzed to verify the results. The topology of the vortex breakdown is governed entirely by helicity density in the vertical plane. Our proposed methodology may be regarded as the prototype for identifying and characterize the breakdowns/eye in more complicated large-scale flows such as tornadoes/hurricanes.
We investigate the asymptotic properties of axisymmetric inertial modes propagating in a spherical shell when viscosity tends to zero. We identify three kinds of eigenmodes whose eigenvalues follow very different laws as the Ekman number $E$ becomes very small. First are modes associated with attractors of characteristics that are made of thin shear layers closely following the periodic orbit traced by the characteristic attractor. Second are modes made of shear layers that connect the critical latitude singularities of the two hemispheres of the inner boundary of the spherical shell. Third are quasi-regular modes associated with the frequency of neutral periodic orbits of characteristics. We thoroughly analyse a subset of attractor modes for which numerical solutions point to an asymptotic law governing the eigenvalues. We show that three length scales proportional to $E^{1/6}$, $E^{1/4}$ and $E^{1/3}$ control the shape of the shear layers that are associated with these modes. These scales point out the key role of the small parameter $E^{1/12}$ in these oscillatory flows. With a simplified model of the viscous Poincare equation, we can give an approximate analytical formula that reproduces the velocity field in such shear layers. Finally, we also present an analysis of the quasi-regular modes whose frequencies are close to $sin(pi/4)$ and explain why a fluid inside a spherical shell cannot respond to any periodic forcing at this frequency when viscosity vanishes.
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.
To date, axisymmetric internal wave fields, which have relevance to atmospheric internal wave fields generated by storm cells and oceanic near-inertial wave fields generated by surface storms, have been experimentally realized using an oscillating sphere or torus as the source. Here, we use a novel wave generator configuration capable of exciting axisymmetric internal wave fields of arbitrary radial form to generate axisymmetric internal wave modes. After establishing the theoretical background for axisymmetric mode propagation, taking into account lateral and vertical confinement, and also accounting for the effects of weak viscosity, we experimentally generate and study modes of different order. We characterize the efficiency of the wave generator through careful measurement of the wave amplitude based upon group velocity arguments. This established, we investigate the ability of vertical confinement to induce resonance, identifying a series of experimental resonant peaks that agree well with theoretical predictions. In the vicinity of resonance, the wave fields undergo a transition to non-linear behaviour that is initiated on the central axis of the domain and proceeds to erode the wave field throughout the domain.
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