Dissipative Structures in Supersonic Turbulence

Abstract

We show that density-weighted moments of the dissipation rate, ${\epsilon }_l$, averaged over a scale $l$, in supersonic turbulence can be successfully explained by the She and Lévêque model [Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 72}, 336 (1994)]. A general method is developed to measure the two parameters of the model, $\gamma$ and $d$, based directly on their physical interpretations as the scaling exponent of the dissipation rate in the most intermittent structures ($\gamma$) and the dimension of the structures ($d$). We find that the best-fit parameters ($\gamma =0.71$ and $d=1.90$) derived from the ${\epsilon }_l$ scalings in a simulation of supersonic turbulence at Mach 6 agree with their direct measurements, confirming the validity of the model in supersonic turbulence.

4 pages, 3 figures, accepted by Phys. Rev. Lett

References in corpus (4)

• The Statistics of Supersonic Isothermal Turbulence
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• The effect of turbulent intermittency on the deflagration to detonation transition in SN Ia explosions
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Cited by in corpus (1)

• Simulating Supersonic Turbulence in Magnetized Molecular Clouds