Fluctuation-dissipation relations in isotropic turbulence from Kraichnan's fully resolved DIA closure

Abstract

Kraichnan's Direct Interaction Approximation (DIA) provides a classical closure framework for homogeneous turbulence, yet its quantitative predictions across all scales remain incompletely understood. We present a fully resolved numerical solution of the forced DIA equations without additional modelling assumptions, enabling a consistent analysis of stationary spectral properties and temporal dynamics across all wavenumbers. The main focus is on the fluctuation-dissipation relation between the normalised velocity correlation function and the Green function of linear response. This relation holds only at large scales and is systematically violated in the inertial and dissipation ranges. The non-Gaussian nature of this violation is encoded in the DIA through its non-Markovian equations, even though the DIA can be derived using a Gaussian mean-field approximation in the stochastic field functional. In the inertial range, characteristic decay times agree quantitatively with those obtained from direct numerical simulations, while deviations arise in the dissipation range. These results highlight the ability of the DIA to capture temporal dynamics despite its limitations in predicting spectral scaling.