Equivalence of nonequilibrium ensembles: Two-dimensional turbulence with a dual cascade

Abstract

We examine the conjecture of equivalence of nonequilibrium ensembles for turbulent flows in two-dimensions (2D) in a dual-cascade setup. We construct a formally time-reversible Navier-Stokes equations in 2D by imposing global constraints of energy and enstrophy conservation. A comparative study of the statistical properties of its solutions with those obtained from the standard Navier-Stokes equations clearly show that a formally time-reversible system is able to reproduce the features of a 2D turbulent flow. Statistical quantities based on one- and two-point measurements show an excellent agreement between the two systems, for the inverse- and direct cascade regions. Moreover, we find that the conjecture holds very well for 2D turbulent flows with both conserved energy and enstrophy at finite Reynolds number, which goes beyond the original conjecture for three-dimensional turbulence in the limit of infinite Reynolds number.