Heat transport in the geostrophic regime of rotating Rayleigh-B{\'e}nard convection

Abstract

We report experimental measurements of heat transport in rotating Rayleigh-B{\'e}nard convection in a cylindrical convection cell with aspect ratio $\Gamma = 1/2$. 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 geostrophic convection through experimental measurements of the normalized heat transport Nu. The heat transport for the rotating state in the geostrophic regime, normalized by the zero-rotation heat transport, is consistent with scaling of $({\rm RaEk}^{-7/4})^\beta$ with $\beta \approx 1$. A phase diagram is presented that encapsulates measurements on the potential geostrophic turbulence regime of rotating thermal convection.