Temporal scaling behavior of decaying two-dimensional turbulence

Abstract

Decaying two-dimensional turbulence is characterized by the emergence of coherent vortices, which subsequently dominate the evolution. The temporal scaling behavior of the flow is analyzed using a scaling theory, a long-time integration of the fluid equations, and a dissipative, modified point-vortex model that represents the turbulence as a system of interacting coherent structures. Good agreement is found in the behavior of average vortex properties, low-order moments of the flow fields, and the form of self-similar evolution.