Libration driven elliptical instability
arXiv:1206.3727 · doi:10.1063/1.4729296
Abstract
The elliptical instability is a generic instability which takes place in any rotating flow whose streamlines are elliptically deformed. Up to now, it has been widely studied in the case of a constant, non-zero differential rotation between the fluid and the elliptical distortion with applications in turbulence, aeronautics, planetology and astrophysics. In this letter, we extend previous analytical studies and report the first numerical and experimental evidence that elliptical instability can also be driven by libration, i.e. periodic oscillations of the differential rotation between the fluid and the elliptical distortion, with a zero mean value. Our results suggest that intermittent, space-filling turbulence due to this instability can exist in the liquid cores and sub-surface oceans of so-called synchronized planets and moons.
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Cited by in corpus (12)
- Nonlinear evolution of the tidal elliptical instability in gaseous planets and stars
- Experimental study of the non-linear saturation of the elliptical instability: inertial wave turbulence versus geostrophic turbulence
- Experimental study of libration-driven zonal flows in non-axisymmetric containers
- Fossil field decay due to nonlinear tides in massive binaries
- Libration-driven inertial waves and mean zonal flows in spherical shells
- Inviscid instabilities in rotating ellipsoids on eccentric Kepler orbits
- Spontaneous generation of inertial waves from boundary turbulence in a librating sphere
- Latitudinal libration driven flows in triaxial ellipsoids
- Magnetohydrodynamic simulations of the elliptical instability in triaxial ellipsoids
- Libration driven multipolar instabilities
- Tidal dissipation due to the elliptical instability and turbulent viscosity in convection zones in rotating giant planets and stars
- The interactions of the elliptical instability and convection