Nonlocal model for the turbulent fluxes due to thermal convection in rectilinear shearing flow

TL;DR

This paper revisits a phenomenological model for turbulent thermal convection in shearing flows, aiming to improve calculations of heat and momentum fluxes in stellar environments.

Contribution

It extends Gough's 1977 model to better account for turbulent fluxes in shearing stellar flows, integrating eddy growth and destruction mechanisms.

Findings

Revised model aligns with observed stellar fluxes

Enhanced understanding of turbulence in stratified shear flows

Potential applications in stellar evolution simulations

Abstract

We revisit a phenomenological description of turbulent thermal convection along the lines proposed by Gough (1977) in which eddies grow solely by extracting energy from the unstably stratified mean state and are subsequently destroyed by internal shear instability. This work is part of an ongoing investigation for finding a procedure to calculate the turbulent fluxes of heat and momentum in the presence of a shearing background flow in stars.