Turbulent Decay of a Passive Scalar in Batchelor Limit: Exact Results from a Quantum-Mechanical Approach

Abstract

We show that the decay of a passive scalar $θ$ advected by a random incompressible flow with zero correlation time in Batchelor limit can be mapped exactly to a certain quantum-mechanical system with a finite number of degrees of freedom. The Schroedinger equation is derived and its solution is analyzed for the case when at the beginning the scalar has Gaussian statistics with correlation function of the form $e^{-|x-y|^2}$. Any equal-time correlation function of the scalar can be expressed via the solution to the Schroedinger equation in a closed algebraic form. We find that the scalar is intermittent during its decay and the average of $|θ|^α$ (assuming zero mean value of $θ$) falls as $e^{-γ_αDt}$ at large $t$, where $D$ is a parameter of the flow, $γ_α=α(6-α)/4$ for $0<α<3$, and $γ_α=9/4$ for $α\geq 3$, independent of $α$.