Universality of Velocity Gradients in Forced Burgers Turbulence

Journal Article · Mon Sep 03 04:00:00 EDT 2001 · Physical Review Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.87.104501· OSTI ID:40277527

Bec, Jeremie

We demonstrate that Burgers turbulence subject to large-scale white-noise-in-time random forcing has a universal power-law tail with exponent -7/2 in the probability density function of negative velocity gradients, as predicted by E, Khanin, Mazel, and Sinai [Phys.Rev.Lett.78, 1904 (1997)]. A particle and shock tracking numerical method gives about five decades of scaling. Using a Lagrangian approach, the -7/2 law is related to the shape of the unstable manifold associated to the global minimizer.

• Research Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory
• Sponsoring Organization: (US)
• DOE Contract Number: W-7405-ENG-36
• OSTI ID: 40277527
• Journal Information: Physical Review Letters, Journal Name: Physical Review Letters Journal Issue: 10 Vol. 87; ISSN 0031-9007
• Publisher: The American Physical Society
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
LAGRANGIAN FUNCTION
PROBABILITY
SHAPE
TURBULENCE
VELOCITY