Stability and angular-momentum transport of fluid flows between corotating cylinders

Abstract

Turbulent transport of angular momentum is a necessary process to explain accretion in astrophysical disks. Although the hydrodynamic stability of disk-like flows has been tested in experiments, results are contradictory and suggest either laminar or turbulent flow. Direct numerical simulations reported here show that currently investigated laboratory flows are hydrodynamically unstable and become turbulent at low Reynolds numbers. The underlying instabilities stem from the axial boundary conditions, affect the flow globally and enhance angular-momentum transport.

11 pages, 4 figures

References in corpus (2)

• Hydrodynamic turbulence cannot transport angular momentum effectively in astrophysical disks
• The Influence of Horizontal Boundaries on Ekman Circulation and Angular Momentum Transport in a Cylindrical Annulus

Cited by in corpus (12)

• High Reynolds number Taylor-Couette turbulence
• Dynamo Action in a Quasi-Keplerian Taylor-Couette Flow
• Identification of a non-axisymmetric mode in laboratory experiments searching for standard magnetorotational instability
• Stochastically driven instability in rotating shear flows
• Azimuthal velocity profiles in Rayleigh-stable Taylor-Couette flow and implied axial angular momentum transport
• Cross-correlation Aided Transport in Stochastically Driven Accretion Flows
• A pure hydrodynamic instability in shear flows and its application to astrophysical accretion disks
• Turbulence in electromagnetically-driven Keplerian flows
• Quasi-two-dimensional nonlinear evolution of helical magnetorotational instability in a magnetized Taylor-Couette flow
• Origin of hydrodynamic instability from noise: from laboratory flow to accretion disk
• Hydrodynamical instability with noise in the Keplerian accretion discs: Modified Landau equation
• The competition between the hydrodynamic instability from noise and magnetorotational instability in the Keplerian disks