Experimental test of the Gallavotti-Cohen fluctuation theorem in turbulent flows

Abstract

We test the fluctuation theorem from measurements in turbulent flows. We study the time fluctuations of the force acting on an obstacle, and we consider two experimental situations: the case of a von K\'arm\'an swirling flow between counter-rotating disks (VK) and the case of a wind tunnel jet. We first study the symmetries implied by the Gallavotti-Cohen fluctuation theorem (FT) on the probability density distributions of the force fluctuations; we then test the Sinai scaling. We observe that in both experiments the symmetries implied by the FT are well verified, whereas the Sinai scaling is established, as expected, only for long times.