Vortex clustering, polarisation and circulation intermittency in classical and quantum turbulence

TL;DR

This paper investigates the statistical properties of vortex arrangements in classical and quantum turbulence, revealing how vortex correlations influence turbulence intermittency and linking quantum vortex distributions to classical energy dissipation models.

Contribution

It demonstrates the emergence of Kolmogorov turbulence from vortex correlations in quantum flows and connects vortex spatial distribution to classical turbulence intermittency models.

Findings

Quantum turbulence exhibits Kolmogorov scaling from vortex orientation correlations.

Intermittency arises from non-trivial vortex spatial arrangements.

Quantum vortex distributions relate to classical energy dissipation patterns.

Abstract

The understanding of turbulent flows is one of the biggest current challenges in physics, as no first-principles theory exists to explain their observed spatio-temporal intermittency. Turbulent flows may be regarded as an intricate collection of mutually-interacting vortices. This picture becomes accurate in quantum turbulence, which is built on tangles of discrete vortex filaments. Here, we study the statistics of velocity circulation in quantum and classical turbulence. We show that, in quantum flows, Kolmogorov turbulence emerges from the correlation of vortex orientations, while deviations -- associated with intermittency -- originate from their non-trivial spatial arrangement. We then link the spatial distribution of vortices in quantum turbulence to the coarse-grained energy dissipation in classical turbulence, enabling the application of existent models of classical turbulence intermittency to the quantum case. Our results provide a connection between the intermittency of quantum and classical turbulence and initiate a promising path to a better understanding of the latter.