Turbulence lifetimes: what we can learn from the physics of glasses

Abstract

In this note, we critically discuss the issue of the possible finiteness of the turbulence lifetime in subcritical transition to turbulence in shear flows, which attracted a lot of interest recently. We briefly review recent experimental and numerical results, as well as theoretical proposals, and compare the difficulties arising in assessing this issue in subcritical shear flow with that encountered in the study of the glass transition. In order to go beyond the purely methodological similarities, we further elaborate on this analogy and propose a qualitative mapping between these two apparently unrelated situations, which could possibly foster new directions of research in subcritical shear flows.

10 pages, 4 figures

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Cited by in corpus (6)

• Dynamics of a first order transition to an absorbing state
• Finite size analysis of a double crossover in transitional wall turbulence
• Far-from-equilibrium complex landscapes
• The glass transition in a nutshell: a source of inspiration to describe the subcritical transition to turbulence
• A cascade model for the discontinuous absorbing phase transition between turbulent and laminar flows
• The Initiation of Shear Band Formation in Deformed Metallic Glasses from Soft Localized Domains