We consider triadic nonlinear interaction in the Navier-Stokes equation for quasi-geostrophic convection in a spherical shell. This approach helps understanding the origin of kinetic energy transport in the system and the particular scheme of mode interaction, as well as the locality of the energy transfer. The peculiarity of convection in the sphere, concerned with excitation of Rossby waves, is considered. The obtained results are compared with our previous study in Cartesian geometry.
We report experimental measurements of heat transport in rotating Rayleigh-B{é}nard convection in a cylindrical convection cell with aspect ratio $Γ= 1/2$. The fluid was helium gas with Prandtl number Pr = 0.7. The range of control parameters was Rayleigh number $4 \times 10^9 < {\rm Ra} < 4 \times 10^{11}$ and Ekman number $2 \times 10^{-7} < {\rm Ek} < 3 \times 10^{-5}$(corresponding to Taylor number $4 \times 10^9 < {\rm Ta} < 1 \times 10^{14}$ and convective Rossby number $0.07 < {\rm Ro} < 5$). We determine the crossover from weakly rotating turbulent convection to rotation dominated geos…
We present spatial-resolved measurements of the columnar vortex structures in rotating Rayleigh-Bénard convection. The scaled radial profiles of the azimuthal velocity $u_ϕ(r)$ and vertical vorticity $ω(r)$ of the vortices are analyzed and compared with the predictions of the asymptotic theory. The results reveal that the asymptotic theory predicts accurately $u_ϕ(r)$ and $ω(r)$ in the geostrophic convection regime, but extension of the theory in the weak rotation regime is needed to interpret the rotation-dependence of the experimental data. Our measurements of the mean velocity, vorticity of…
The competition between turbulent convection and global rotation in planetary and stellar interiors governs the transport of heat and tracers, as well as magnetic-field generation. These objects operate in dynamical regimes ranging from weakly rotating convection to the `geostrophic turbulence' regime of rapidly rotating convection. However, the latter regime has remained elusive in the laboratory, despite a worldwide effort to design ever-taller rotating convection cells over the last decade. Building on a recent experimental approach where convection is driven radiatively, we report heat tra…
The effect of domain anisotropy on the inverse cascade occurring within the geostrophic turbulence regime of rapidly rotating Rayleigh-Bénard convection (RRBC) is investigated. In periodic domains with square cross-section in the horizontal a domain-filling dipole state is present. For rectangular periodic domains a Kolmogorov-like flow consisting of a periodic array of alternating unidirectional jets with embedded vortices is observed, together with an underlying weak meandering transverse jet. Similar transitions occurring in weakly dissipative two-dimensional flows driven by externally impo…
Using direct numerical simulations, we study rotating Rayleigh-Bénard convection in a cylindrical cell for a broad range of Rayleigh, Ekman, and Prandtl numbers from the onset of wall modes to the geostrophic regime, an extremely important one in geophysical and astrophysical contexts. We connect linear wall-mode states that occur prior to the onset of bulk convection with the boundary zonal flow that coexists with turbulent bulk convection in the geostrophic regime through the continuity of length and time scales and of convective heat transport. We quantitatively collapse drift frequency, bo…
Scale-dependent force balance governs transition to the geostrophic regime in liquid metal rotating convection
State Key Laboratory for Strength and Vibration of Mechanical Structures and School of Aerospace, Xi’an Jiaotong University（西安交通大学航天学院机械结构强度与振动国家重点实验室）；Center for Complex Flows and Soft Matter Research and Department of Mechanics and Aerospace Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology（南方科技大学力学与航空航天工程系复杂流动与软物质研究中心）；Research Institute of Intelligent Complex Systems, Fudan University（复旦大学智能复杂系统研究院）；Department of Physics, Southern University of Science and Technology（南方科技大学物理系）
We use the more intuitive approach due to Kolmogorov (and subsequently, Landau in his text on fluid dynamics) to calculate some third-order structure functions for quasi-geostrophic turbulence for the forward cascade of pseudo-potential enstrophy and the inverse energy cascade in quasi-geostrophic turbulence.
We present high-precision experimental and numerical studies of the Nusselt number $Nu$ as functions of the Rayleigh number $Ra$ in geostrophic rotating convection with domain aspect ratio $Γ$ varying from 0.4 to 3.8 and the Ekman number Ek from $2.0{\times}10^{-7}$ to $2.7{\times}10^{-5}$. The heat-transport data $Nu(Ra)$ reveal a gradual transition from buoyancy-dominated to geostrophic convection at large $Ek$, whereas the transition becomes sharp with decreasing $Ek$. We determine the power-law scaling of $Nu{\sim}Ra^γ$, and show that the boundary flows give rise to pronounced enhancement …
Rotating Rayleigh--Bénard convection is an oft-employed model system to evaluate the interplay of buoyant forcing and Coriolis forces due to rotation, an eminently relevant interaction of dynamical effects found in many geophysical and astrophysical flows. These flows display extreme values of the governing parameters: large Rayleigh numbers $Ra$, quantifying the strength of thermal forcing, and small Ekman numbers $E$, a parameter inversely proportional to the rotation rate. This leads to the dominant geostrophic balance of forces in the flow between pressure gradient and Coriolis force. The …
Numerical simulations of 3D, rapidly rotating Rayleigh-Benard convection are performed using an asymptotic quasi-geostrophic model that incorporates the effects of no-slip boundaries through (i) parameterized Ekman pumping boundary conditions, and (ii) a thermal wind boundary layer that regularizes the enhanced thermal fluctuations induced by pumping. The fidelity of the model, obtained by an asymptotic reduction of the Navier-Stokes equations that implicitly enforces a pointwise geostrophic balance, is explored for the first time by comparisons of simulations against the findings of direct nu…
We present a new pseudo-spectral open-source code nicknamed pizza. It is dedicated to the study of rapidly-rotating Boussinesq convection under the 2-D spherical quasi-geostrophic approximation, a physical hypothesis that is appropriate to model the turbulent convection that develops in planetary interiors. The code uses a Fourier decomposition in the azimuthal direction and supports both a Chebyshev collocation method and a sparse Chebyshev integration formulation in the cylindrically-radial direction. It supports several temporal discretisation schemes encompassing multi-step time steppers a…
The onset of convection in a rotating cylindrical annulus with parallel ends filled with a compressible fluid is studied in the anelastic approximation. Thermal Rossby waves propagating in the azimuthal direction are found as solutions. The analogy to the case of Boussinesq convection in the presence of conical end surfaces of the annular region is emphasized. As in the latter case the results can be applied as an approximation for the description of the onset of anelastic convection in rotating spherical fluid shells. Reasonable agreement with three-dimensional numerical results published by …
The dependence of the heat transfer, as measured by the nondimensional Nusselt number $Nu$, on Ekman pumping for rapidly rotating Rayleigh-Bénard convection in an infinite plane layer is examined for fluids with Prandtl number $Pr = 1$. A joint effort utilizing simulations from the Composite Non-hydrostatic Quasi-Geostrophic model (CNH-QGM) and direct numerical simulations (DNS) of the incompressible fluid equations has mapped a wide range of the Rayleigh number $Ra$ - Ekman number $E$ parameter space within the geostrophic regime of rotating convection. Corroboration of the $Nu$-$Ra$ relation…
We study nonlinear convection in a rapidly rotating sphere with internal heating for values of the Prandtl number relevant for liquid metals ($Pr\in[10^{-2},10^{-1}]$). We use a numerical model based on the quasi-geostrophic approximation, in which variations of the axial vorticity along the rotation axis are neglected, whereas the temperature field is fully three-dimensional. We identify two separate branches of convection close to onset: (i) a well-known weak branch for Ekman numbers greater than $10^{-6}$, which is continuous at the onset (supercritical bifurcation) and consists of thermal …
Many geophysical and astrophysical phenomena are driven by turbulent fluid dynamics, containing behaviors separated by tens of orders of magnitude in scale. While direct simulations have made large strides toward understanding geophysical systems, such models still inhabit modest ranges of the governing parameters that are difficult to extrapolate to planetary settings. The canonical problem of rotating Rayleigh-Bénard convection provides an alternate approach - isolating the fundamental physics in a reduced setting. Theoretical studies and asymptotically-reduced simulations in rotating convec…
The Boussinesq model of convection in a flat layer with heating from below is considered. We analyze the effects of anisotropy caused by rapid rotation in physical and wave spaces and demonstrate the suppression of energy transfer by rotation. We also examine the structure of the wave triangle in nonlinear interaction. The range of parameters is adapted to the models of convection in the geodynamo.
A convection-driven multiscale dynamo model is developed in the limit of low Rossby number for the plane layer geometry in which the gravity and rotation vectors are aligned. The small-scale fluctuating dynamics are described by a magnetically-modified quasi-geostrophic equation set, and the large-scale mean dynamics are governed by a diagnostic thermal wind balance. The model utilizes three timescales that respectively characterize the convective timescale, the large-scale magnetic evolution timescale, and the large-scale thermal evolution timescale. Distinct equations are derived for the cas…
Motivated by understanding the dynamics of stellar and planetary interiors, we have performed a set of direct numerical simulations of Boussinesq convection in a rotating full sphere. The domain is internally heated with fixed temperature and stress-free boundary conditions, but fixed heat flux and no-slip boundary conditions are also briefly considered. We particularly focus on the large-scale coherent structures and the mean zonal flows that can develop in the system. At Prandtl number of unity, as the thermal forcing (measured by the Rayleigh number) is increased above the value for the ons…
Rotating turbulence is commonly known for being dominated by geostrophic vortices that are invariant along the rotation axis and undergo inverse cascade. Yet, it has recently been shown to sustain fully three-dimensional states with a downscale energy cascade. In this letter, we investigate the statistical properties of three-dimensional rotating turbulence by the means of direct numerical simulations in a triply periodic box where geostrophic vortices are specifically damped. The resulting turbulent flow is an inertial wave turbulence that verifies the Zakharov-Kolmogorov spectrum derived ana…
The possibility of subcritical behaviour in the geostrophic turbulence regime of rapidly rotating thermally driven convection is explored. In this regime a non-local inverse energy transfer may compete with the more traditional and local direct cascade. We show that, even for control parameters for which no inverse cascade has previously been observed, a subcritical transition towards a large-scale vortex state can occur when the system is initialized with a vortex dipole of finite amplitude. This new example of bistability in a turbulent flow, which may not be specific to rotating convection,…
The elliptical instability is an instability of elliptical streamlines, which can be excited by large-scale tidal flows in rotating fluid bodies, and excites inertial waves if the dimensionless tidal amplitude ($ε$) is sufficiently large. It operates in convection zones but its interactions with turbulent convection have not been studied in this context. We perform an extensive suite of Cartesian hydrodynamical simulations in wide boxes to explore the interactions of the elliptical instability and Rayleigh-Bénard convection. We find that geostrophic vortices generated by the elliptical instabi…
We derive statistical equilibrium solutions of the truncated inviscid surface quasi-geostrophic (SQG) equations, and verify the validity of these solutions at late times in numerical simulations of the truncated SQG equations. The results indicate enstrophy thermalizes while energy can condense at the gravest modes, in agreement with previous indications of a direct cascade of enstrophy and an inverse cascade of energy in forced-dissipative SQG systems. At early times, the truncated inviscid SQG simulations show a behavior reminiscent of forced-dissipative SQG turbulence, and we identify spect…
The rapid rotation of planets causes cyclonic thermal turbulence in their cores which may generate the large-scale magnetic fields observed outside the planets. We consider the model which enables us reproduce the typical features of small-scale geostrophic flows in physical and wave spaces. We present estimates of kinetic and magnetic energy fluxes as a function of the wave number. The joint existence of forward and inverse cascades are demonstrated. We also consider the mechanism of magnetic field saturation at the end of the kinematic dynamo regime.
Phenomenological arguments are used to explore finite-time singularity development in different physical fully-developed turbulence (FDT) situations. The role played by the cascade physics underlying this process is investigated. Such diverse aspects as the effects of spatial intermittency and fluid compressibility in three-dimensional (3D) FDT and the role of the divorticity amplification mechanism in two-dimensional (2D) FDT and quasi-2D quasi-geostrophic FDT and the advection-diffusion mechanism in magnetohydrodynamic turbulence are considered to provide physical insights into this process …
We study rapidly-rotating Boussinesq convection driven by internal heating in a full sphere. We use a numerical model based on the quasi-geostrophic approximation for the velocity field, whereas the temperature field is three-dimensional. This approximation allows us to perform simulations for Ekman numbers down to 1e-8, Prandtl numbers relevant for liquid metals (~0.1) and Reynolds numbers up to 3e4. Persistent zonal flows composed of multiple jets form as a result of the mixing of potential vorticity. For the largest Rayleigh numbers computed, the zonal velocity is larger than the convective…
Inverse cascades of kinetic energy and thermal variance in the subset of vertically homogeneous modes in spectral space are found to cause a slow aggregation to a pair of convective supergranules that eventually fill the whole horizontally extended, three-dimensional, turbulent Rayleigh-Bénard convection layer when a heat flux is prescribed at the top and bottom. An additional weak rotation of the layer around the vertical axis stops this aggregation at a scale that is smaller than the lateral domain extension and ceases the inverse cascade for the thermal variance. The inverse cascade for the…
A detailed study of the Rayleigh-Bénard convection in two-dimensions with free-slip boundaries is presented. Pseudo-spectral method has been used to numerically solve the system for Rayleigh number up to $3.3 \times 10^7$. The system exhibits various convective states: stationary, oscillatory, chaotic and soft-turbulent. The `travelling rolls' instability is observed in the chaotic regime. Scaling of Nusselt number shows an exponent close to 0.33. Studies on energy spectrum and flux show an inverse cascade of kinetic energy and a forward cascade of entropy. This is consistent with the shell-to…
We consider rotating Rayleigh-Bénard convection of a fluid with a Prandtl number of $Pr = 0.8$ in a cylindrical cell with an aspect ratio $Γ= 1/2$. Direct numerical simulations were performed for the Rayleigh number range $10^5 \leq Ra \leq 10^9$ and the inverse Rossby number range $0 \leq 1/Ro \leq 20$. We propose a method to capture regime transitions based on the decomposition of the velocity field into toroidal and poloidal parts. We identify four different regimes. First, a buoyancy dominated regime occurring as long as the toroidal energy $e_{tor}$ is not affected by rotation and remains…
In this paper we present numerical simulations of rapidly-rotating Rayleigh-Bénard convection in the Boussinesq approximation with stress-free boundary conditions. At moderately low Rossby number and large Rayleigh number, we show that a large-scale depth-invariant flow is formed, reminiscent of the condensate state observed in two-dimensional flows. We show that the large-scale circulation shares many similarities with the so-called vortex, or slow-mode, of forced rotating turbulence. Our investigations show that at a fixed rotation rate the large-scale vortex is only observed for a finite ra…
We consider the nonlinear evolution of an unstable baroclinic wave in a regime of rotating stratified flow that is of relevance to interior circulation in the oceans and in the atmosphere---a regime characterized by small large-scale Rossby and Froude numbers, a small vertical to horizontal aspect ratio, and no bounding horizontal surfaces. Using high-resolution simulations of the non-hydrostatic Boussinesq equations and companion integrations of the balanced quasi-geostrophic equations, we present evidence for a local route to dissipation of balanced energy directly through interior turbulent…
Rotating Rayleigh-Bénard convection is investigated numerically with the use of an asymptotic model that captures the rapidly rotating, small Ekman number limit, $Ek \rightarrow 0$. The Prandtl number ($Pr$) and the asymptotically scaled Rayleigh number ($\widetilde{Ra} = Ra Ek^{4/3}$, where $Ra$ is the typical Rayleigh number) are varied systematically. For sufficiently vigorous convection, an inverse kinetic energy cascade leads to the formation of a depth-invariant large-scale vortex (LSV). With respect to the kinetic energy, we find a transition from convection dominated states to LSV domi…
In rotating stratified flows including in the atmosphere and ocean, inertia-gravity waves (IGWs) often coexist with a geostrophically balanced turbulent flow. Advection and refraction by this flow lead to wave scattering, redistributing IGW energy in the position--wavenumber phase space. We give a detailed description of this process by deriving a kinetic equation governing the evolution of the IGW phase-space energy density. The derivation relies on the smallness of the Rossby number characterising the geostrophic flow, which is treated as a random field with known statistics, and makes no as…
The dynamics of convecting fluids in rotating spherical shells is governed at Prandtl numbers of the order unity by the interaction between differential rotation and roll-like convection eddies. While the differential rotation is driven by the Reynolds stresses of the eddies, its shearing action inhibits convection and causes phenomena such as localized convection and turbulent relaxation oscillations. The response of the system is enriched in the case of dynamo action. Lorentz forces may brake either entirely or partially the geostrophic differential rotation and give rise to two rather diffe…
The properties of rotating turbulence driven by precession are studied using direct numerical simulations and analysis of the underlying dynamical processes in Fourier space. The study is carried out in the local rotating coordinate frame, where precession gives rise to a background shear flow, which becomes linearly unstable and breaks down into turbulence. We observe that this precession-driven turbulence is in general characterized by coexisting two dimensional (2D) columnar vortices and three dimensional (3D) inertial waves, whose relative energies depend on the precession parameter $Po$. …
Inertia-gravity waves (IGWs) play an essential role in the terrestrial atmospheric dynamics as they can lead to energy and momentum flux when propagating upwards. An open question is to which extent IGWs contribute to the total energy and to flattening of the energy spectrum observed at the mesoscale. In this work, we present an experimental investigation of the energy distribution between the large-scale balanced flow and the small-scale imbalanced flow. Weakly nonlinear IGWs emitted from baroclinic jets are observed in the differentially heated rotating annulus experiment. Similar to the atm…
We look at various correlation functions, which include those that involve both the velocity and the vorticity fields, in two-dimensional (2D) isotropic homogeneous unforced turbulence. We adopt the more intuitive approach due to Kolmogorov (and subsequently, Landau in his text on fluid dynamics) and show that how the 2D turbulence's results, obtainable using other methods, may be established in a simpler way. Same method is used to calculate some third-order structure functions for quasi-geostrophic (QG) turbulence for the forward cascade of pseudo-potential enstrophy and the inverse energy c…
It is a well established result of linear theory that the influence of differing mechanical boundary conditions, i.e., stress-free or no-slip, on the primary instability in rotating convection becomes asymptotically small in the limit of rapid rotation. This is accounted for by the diminishing impact of the viscous stresses exerted within Ekman boundary layers and the associated vertical momentum transport by Ekman pumping. By contrast, in the nonlinear regime recent experiments and supporting simulations are now providing evidence that the efficiency of heat transport remains strongly influen…
Seismic waves sensitive to the outermost part of the Earth's liquid core seem to be affected by a stably stratified layer at the core-mantle boundary. Such a layer could have an observable signature in both long-term and short-term variations of the magnetic field of the Earth, which are used to probe the flow at the top of the core. Indeed, with the recent SWARM mission, it seems reasonable to be able to identify waves propagating in the core with period of several months, which may play an important role in the large-scale dynamics. In this paper, we characterize the influence of a stratifie…
The ocean and the atmosphere, and hence the climate, are governed at large scale by interactions between pressure gradient, Coriolis and buoyancy forces. This leads to a quasi-geostrophic balance in which, in a two-dimensional-like fashion, the energy injected by solar radiation, winds or tides goes to large scales in what is known as an inverse cascade. Yet, except for Ekman friction, energy dissipation and turbulent mixing occur at small scale implying the formation of such scales associated with breaking of geostrophic dynamics through wave-eddy interactions \cite{ledwell_00, vanneste_13} o…
The role of short-wave instabilities on geostrophic turbulence is studied in a simplified model consisting of three layers in the quasi-geostrophic approximation. The linear stability analysis shows that short-wave instabilities are created by the interplay between the shear in the upper and the lower layers. If the stratification is non-uniform, in particular surface intensified, the linear growth rate is larger for short-wave instabilities than for long-wave instabilities and the layers are essentially decoupled, with the small scales growing independently. The fully developed homogeneous tu…
