Phenomenology of Rayleigh-Taylor turbulence.
I analyze the advanced mixing regime of the Rayleigh-Taylor incompressible turbulence in the small Atwood number Boussinesq approximation. The prime focus of my phenomenological approach is to resolve the temporal behavior and the small-scale spatial correlations of velocity and temperature fields inside the mixing zone, which grows as proportional, variant t(2). I show that the "5/3"-Kolmogorov scenario for velocity and temperature spectra is realized in three spatial dimensions with the viscous and dissipative scales decreasing in time, proportional, variant t(-1/4). The Bolgiano-Obukhov scenario is shown to be valid in two dimensions with the viscous and dissipative scales growing, proportional, variant t(1/8).
Chertkov
Michael
M
Theoretical Division, LANL, Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545, USA.