Exact Resummations in the Theory of Hydrodynamic Turbulence: II A Ladder to Anomalous Scaling

Abstract

In paper I of this series on fluid turbulence we showed that exact resummations of the perturbative theory of the structure functions of velocity differences result in a finite (order by order) theory. These findings exclude any known perturbative mechanism for anomalous scaling of the velocity structure functions. In this paper we continue to build the theory of turbulence and commence the analysis of nonperturbative effects that form the analytic basis of anomalous scaling. Starting from the Navier-Stokes equations (at high Reynolds number Re) we discuss the simplest examples of the appearance of anomalous exponents in fluid mechanics. These examples are the nonlinear (four-point) Green's function and related quantities. We show that the renormalized perturbation theory for these functions contains ``ladder`` diagrams with (convergent!) logarithmic terms that sum up to anomalous exponents. Using a new sum rule which is derived here we calculate the leading anomalous exponent and show that it is critical in a sense made precise below. This result opens up the possibility of multiscaling of the structure functions with the outer scale of turbulence as the renormalization length. This possibility will be discussed in detail in the concluding paper III of this series.