Turbulence lifetimes: what we can learn from the physics of glasses

TL;DR

This paper explores the potential finite nature of turbulence lifetimes in shear flows, drawing parallels with glass transition physics to suggest new research directions.

Contribution

It proposes a qualitative analogy between turbulence in shear flows and glass transition, offering a novel perspective to understand turbulence lifetimes.

Findings

Comparison of experimental and numerical results on turbulence lifetimes

Identification of methodological challenges in assessing turbulence duration

Proposed analogy with glass transition physics to guide future research

Abstract

In this note, we critically discuss the issue of the possible finiteness of the turbulence lifetime in subcritical transition to turbulence in shear flows, which attracted a lot of interest recently. We briefly review recent experimental and numerical results, as well as theoretical proposals, and compare the difficulties arising in assessing this issue in subcritical shear flow with that encountered in the study of the glass transition. In order to go beyond the purely methodological similarities, we further elaborate on this analogy and propose a qualitative mapping between these two apparently unrelated situations, which could possibly foster new directions of research in subcritical shear flows.