Distributed chaos and Rayleigh-Benard turbulence at very high Ra

Abstract

It is shown, by the means of distributed chaos approach and using the experimental data, that at very large Rayleigh number $Ra > 10^{14}$ and Prandtl number $Pr \sim 1$ the Rayleigh-B\'{e}nard turbulence can undergo a transition related to spontaneous breaking of the fundamental Lagrangian relabeling symmetry. Due to the Noether's theorem helicity plays central role in this process. After the transition the temperature spectrum has a stretched exponential form $E (k) \propto \exp(-k/k_{\beta})^{\beta}$ with $\beta =2/5$ both at the cell midplain and at the near-wall (low boundary) regions. There is a similarity between this phenomenon and the effects of polymer additives.