The nature of triad interactions in active turbulence

TL;DR

This paper investigates triad interactions in 3D active turbulence, revealing how stable and unstable triads influence energy transfer and flow stability, and demonstrating the emergence of Beltrami flows and inverse cascades in active turbulence models.

Contribution

It introduces a new classification of triad interactions in active turbulence based on their stability, and links these to the emergence of Beltrami flows and inverse energy cascades.

Findings

Unstable triads cause exponential energy growth.

Stable triads lead to bounded energy and helicity with limit cycles.

Active turbulence models develop Kolmogorov-type energy spectra.

Abstract

Generalized Navier-Stokes (GNS) equations describing three-dimensional (3D) active fluids with flow-dependent spectral forcing have been shown to possess numerical solutions that can sustain significant energy transfer to larger scales by realising chiral Beltrami-type chaotic flows. To rationalise these findings, we study here the triad truncations of polynomial and Gaussian GNS models focusing on modes lying in the energy injection range. Identifying a previously unknown cubic invariant, we show that the asymptotic triad dynamics reduces to that of a forced rigid body coupled to a particle moving in a magnetic field. This analogy allows us to classify triadic interactions by their asymptotic stability: unstable triads correspond to rigid-body forcing along the largest and smallest principal axes, whereas stable triads arise from forcing along the middle axis. Analysis of the polynomial GNS model reveals that unstable triads induce exponential growth of energy and helicity, whereas stable triads develop a limit cycle of bounded energy and helicity. This suggests that the unstable triads dominate the initial relaxation stage of the full hydrodynamic equations, whereas the stable triads determine the statistically stationary state. To test this hypothesis, we introduce and investigate the Gaussian active turbulence model, which develops a Kolmogorov-type $-5/3$ energy spectrum at large wavelengths. Similar to the polynomial case, the steady-state chaotic flows spontaneously accumulate non-zero mean helicity while exhibiting Beltrami statistics and upward energy transport. Our results suggest that self-sustained Beltrami-type flows and an inverse energy cascade may be generic features of 3D active turbulence models with flow-dependent spectral forcing.