Interlinking Rayleigh–Taylor/Richtmyer–Meshkov interfacial mixing with variable acceleration and canonical Kolmogorov turbulence

Canonical turbulence and Rayleigh–Taylor/Richtmyer–Meshkov mixing with variable acceleration are paradigmatic complexities in science, mathematics, and engineering, with broadly ranging applications in nature, technology, and industry. We employ scaling symmetries and invariant forms to represent these challenging processes and to assess their very different properties. We directly link—for the first time to our knowledge—the attributes of Rayleigh–Taylor/Richtmyer–Meshkov interfacial mixing with variable acceleration to those of canonical turbulence, including scaling laws, spectral shapes, and characteristic scales. We explore the role of control dimensional parameters in quantifying these processes. The theory results compare well with available observations, the chart perspectives for future experiments and simulations, and for better understanding realistic complexity.

We acknowledge the National Science Foundation (USA) (Award No. 1404449) and the Australian Research Council (AUS) (Award No. LE220100132).

Snezhana I. Abarzhi: Conceptualization (lead); Formal analysis (lead); Investigation (lead); Methodology (lead); Project administration (lead); Resources (lead); Visualization (lead); Writing – original draft (lead).

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

This work is dedicated to the scientist in fluid dynamics Professor, Katepalli R. Sreenivasan, for his 75th anniversary. Professor Sreenivasan is a legendary figure—like Kepler—in fluid dynamics. He is a scientist of impeccable standards and accomplishments and an eminent physicist and an applied mathematician. Professor Sreenivasan is one of most versatile researchers, a visionary of contemporary science, and a founder of the state-of-the-art laboratory experiments, including the frontier data analysis methods and the cutting edge numerical investigations. The international scientific community greatly values the epoch-making contributions of Professor Sreenivasan in turbulence and hydrodynamics, in statistical and nonlinear physics, and in astrophysics. His classical works—the discovery of the physics of the hydro processes in stellar and planetary interiors, the groundbreaking laboratory experiments on convection in extreme conditions relevant to stellar interiors, the fundamentals of canonical turbulence, the anomalous scaling in realistic turbulent processes, the laminarization of accelerated turbulent flows, among others—inspire us to reveal the secrets of nature, to create bright and original ideas, and to place the reality first, from drops to stars.