Ensemble model of turbulence based on states of constant flux in wavenumber space

Abstract

An ensemble model of turbulence is proposed. The ensemble consists of flow fields in which the flux of an inviscid conserved quantity, such as energy (or enstrophy in two-dimensional flow fields), across the wavenumber $k$ is a constant independent of $k$ in an appropriate range. Two-dimensional flow fields of constant enstrophy flux are sampled randomly by a Monte Carlo method. The energy spectra $E_k$ of the flow fields are consistent with the scaling $E_k \propto k^{-3}(\ln(k/k_\mathrm{b}))^{-1/3}$ where $k_\mathrm{b}$ is the bottom wavenumber of the constant-flux range.