Intermittent distribution of inertial particles in turbulent flows.
We consider inertial particles suspended in an incompressible turbulent flow. Because of particles' inertia their flow is compressible, which leads to fluctuations of concentration significant for heavy particles. We show that the statistics of these fluctuations is independent of details of the velocity statistics, which allows us to predict that the particles cluster on the viscous scale of turbulence and describe the probability distribution of concentration fluctuations. We discuss the possible role of the clustering in the physics of atmospheric aerosols, in particular, in cloud formation.
Balkovsky
E
E
School of Mathematics, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, NJ 08540, USA.
Falkovich
G
G
Fouxon
A
A