K. Scaling
Institute of Physics, Academia Dynamica
112 Spiral Road, Quantumfield, Nanoland
email: chaos@phy.ad.edu.hk
abstract
The statistical properties of a passive scalar field advected by a rapidly-changing turbulent flow in two dimensions is investigated. Based on a phenomenological analysis, we show that the numerically observed multifractal scaling of equal-time structure functions can be attributed to rare fluctuations that satisfy a Levy distribution. We identify two mechanisms which generate the rare events and estimate the frequency of such events in each case. The results are compared with numerical simulations.1
1. T. P. Ana and H. D. Sim, Physica D 99, 1234 (1999).