Departure from the statistical equilibrium of large scales in three-dimensional hydrodynamic turbulence

TL;DR

This paper investigates how large-scale dynamics in 3D turbulence deviate from statistical equilibrium, revealing a universal power-law decay in velocity difference PDFs and a significant coupling between large and small scales.

Contribution

It introduces a conjugate regime to Kolmogorov's inertial range for large scales, deriving universal decay laws and quantifying departures from equilibrium in forced turbulence.

Findings

Odd parts of PDFs are small but non-zero, indicating deviation from Gaussianity.

Third-order structure functions decay with a universal power-law exponent of -2.

Departure from equilibrium is viscosity independent and significant for large-scale turbulence.

Abstract

We study the statistically steady states of the forced dissipative three-dimensional homogeneous isotropic turbulence at scales larger than the forcing scale in real separation space. The probability density functions (PDFs) of longitudinal velocity difference at large separations are close to but deviate from Gaussian, measured by their non-zero odd parts. Under the assumption that forcing controls the large-scale dynamics, we propose a conjugate regime to Kolmogorov's inertial range, independent of the forcing scale, to capture the odd parts of PDFs. The analytical expressions of the third-order longitudinal structure functions derived from the K\'arm\'an-Howarth-Monin equation prove that the odd-part PDFs of velocity differences at large separations are small but non-zero, and show that the odd-order longitudinal structure functions have a universal power-law decay with exponent $-2$ as the separation tends to infinity regardless of the particular forcing form, implying a significant coupling between large and small scales. Thus, dynamics of large scales depart from the absolute equilibrium, and we can partially recover small-scale information without explicitly resolving small-scale dynamics. The departure from the statistical equilibrium is quantified and found to be viscosity independent. Even though this departure is small, it is significant and should be considered when studying the large scales of the forced three-dimensional homogeneous isotropic turbulence.