Extreme fluctuations and the finite lifetime of the turbulent state

Abstract

We argue that the transition to turbulence is controlled by large amplitude events that follow extreme distribution theory. The theory suggests an explanation for recent observations of the turbulent state lifetime which exhibit super-exponential scaling behaviour with Reynolds number.

Change log: Universality of c2/c1 argument has been removed, scaling with size of puff added. To appear in Phys. Rev. E Rapid Communications.

References in corpus (5)

• Reply to Comment on 'Critical behaviour in the relaminarization of localized turbulence in pipe flow'
• Transient Turbulence in Taylor-Couette Flow
• Spatiotemporal perspective on the decay of turbulence in wall-bounded flows
• Modeling transitional plane Couette flow
• Lifetime statistics in transitional pipe flow

Cited by in corpus (23)

• Simplifying the complexity of pipe flow
• Ecological collapse and the emergence of traveling waves at the onset of shear turbulence
• Directed percolation describes lifetime and growth of turbulent puffs and slugs
• Turbulence as a problem in non-equilibrium statistical mechanics
• On the transition to turbulence of wall-bounded flows in general, and plane Couette flow in particular
• Transition to turbulence in wall-bounded flows: Where do we stand?
• Statistical transition to turbulence in plane channel flow
• The Leidenfrost effect as a directed percolation phase transition
• Transition to turbulence in shear flows
• On the decay of turbulence in plane Couette flow
• Extreme events in transitional turbulence
• Sudden relaminarisation and lifetimes in forced isotropic turbulence
• Rare event-triggered transitions in aerodynamic bifurcation
• Routes to turbulence in Taylor-Couette flow
• Bistability of the large-scale dynamics in quasi-two-dimensional turbulence
• Do extreme events trigger turbulence decay? - a numerical study of turbulence decay time in pipe flows
• Method to measure efficiently rare fluctuations of turbulence intensity for turbulent-laminar transitions in pipe flows
• Turbulence lifetimes: what we can learn from the physics of glasses
• Mechanical and statistical study of the laminar hole formation in transitional plane Couette flow
• Deterministic and stochastic aspects of the transition to turbulence
• Lifetimes of metastable windy states in two-dimensional Rayleigh-Bénard convection with stress-free boundaries
• A cascade model for the discontinuous absorbing phase transition between turbulent and laminar flows
• Extreme-value statistics of curl-of-vorticity precursor peaks in perturbed Taylor-Green vortex turbulence