Energy cascades in rapidly rotating and stratified turbulence within elongated domains

TL;DR

This paper investigates energy transfer mechanisms in rapidly rotating, stratified turbulence within elongated domains, revealing conditions for forward and inverse energy cascades through extensive simulations and theoretical analysis.

Contribution

It introduces a new asymptotic framework and explores the parameter space, identifying regimes of forward and inverse energy cascades in rotating and stratified turbulence.

Findings

Forward energy cascade occurs in specific parameter regions.

Inverse cascade observed at weak and strong stratification.

Theoretical support for observed cascade phenomenology.

Abstract

We study forced, rapildy rotating and stably stratified turbulence in an elongated domain using an asymptotic expansion at simultaneously low Rossby number $Ro\ll1$ and large domain height compared to the energy injection scale, $h=H/\ell_{in}\gg1$. The resulting equations depend on the parameter $\lambda =(h Ro )^{-1}$ and the Froude number $Fr$. An extensive set of direct numerical simulations (DNS) is performed to explore the parameter space $(\lambda,Fr)$. We show that a forward energy cascade occurs in one region of this space, and a split energy cascade outside it. At weak stratification (large $Fr$), an inverse cascade is observed for sufficiently large $\lambda$. At strong stratification (small $Fr$) the flow becomes approximately hydrostatic and an inverse cascade is always observed. For both weak and strong stratification, we present theoretical arguments supporting the observed energy cascade phenomenology. Our results shed light on an asymptotic region in the phase diagram of rotating and stratified turbulence, which is difficult to attain by brute-force DNS.