Anomalous scaling in homogeneous isotropic turbulence

Abstract

The anomalous scaling exponents $\zeta_{n}$ of the longitudinal structure functions $S_{n}$ for homogeneous isotropic turbulence are derived from the Navier-Stokes equations by using field theoretic methods to develop a low energy approximation in which the Kolmogorov theory is shown to act effectively as a mean field theory. The corrections to the Kolmogorov exponents are expressed in terms of the anomalous dimensions of the composite operators which occur in the definition of $S_{n}$. These are calculated from the anomalous scaling of the appropriate class of nonlinear Green's function, using an $uv$ fixed point of the renormalisation group, which thereby establishes the connection with the dynamics of the turbulence. The main result is an algebraic expression for $\zeta_{n}$, which contains no adjustable constants. It is valid at orders $n$ below $% g_{\ast}^{-1}$, where $g_{\ast}$ is the fixed point coupling constant. This expression is used to calculate $\zeta _{n}$ for orders in the range $% n=2$ to 10, and the results are shown to be in good agreement with experimental data, key examples being $\zeta_{2}=0.7$, $\zeta_{3}=1$ and $% \zeta_{6}=1.8$.