Role of Third-Order Structure Function in Studying Two-Dimensionalisation of Turbulence

TL;DR

This paper investigates the role of third-order structure functions in understanding the two-dimensionalisation of turbulence, providing new theoretical insights and experimental correlations for rotating turbulence and its inverse energy cascade.

Contribution

It introduces a simplified approach to derive third-order structure functions in 2D turbulence and extends this to quasi-geostrophic turbulence, offering new explanations for the inverse energy cascade and spectral exponents.

Findings

The inverse energy cascade is explained by the two-dimensionalisation effect.

Spectral exponent range refined to -2 to -7/3 for rapidly rotating turbulence.

Shell model simulations support the theoretical signatures of two-dimensionalisation.

Abstract

We look at various correlation functions, which include those that involve both the velocity and the vorticity fields, in two-dimensional (2D) isotropic homogeneous unforced turbulence. We adopt the more intuitive approach due to Kolmogorov (and subsequently, Landau in his text on fluid dynamics) and show that how the 2D turbulence's results, obtainable using other methods, may be established in a simpler way. Same method is used to calculate some third-order structure functions for quasi-geostrophic (QG) turbulence for the forward cascade of pseudo-potential enstrophy and the inverse energy cascade in quasi-geostrophic turbulence. These results motivate us to study the two-point third order structure function in the context of the two-dimensionalisation effect. Consequent studies enable us to give a reason for the inverse energy cascade in the two-dimensionalised rapidly rotating three dimensional (3D) incompressible turbulence. For such a system, literature shows a possibility of the exponent of wavenumber in the energy spectrum's relation to lie between -2 and -3. We argue the existence of a stricter range of -2 to -7/3 for the exponent in the case of rapidly rotating turbulence which is in accordance with the recent experiments. Also, a derivation for the two point third order structure function has been provided helping one to argue that even with slow rotation one gets, although dominated, a spectrum with the exponent -2.87, thereby hinting at the initiation of the two-dimensionalisation effect with rotation. Moreover, using the Gledzer-Ohkitani-Yamada (GOY) shell model, modified for rotation, these signatures of two-dimensionalisation effect have been verified.