Large-scale multifractality and lack of self-similar decay for Burgers and 3D Navier-Stokes turbulence

Abstract

We study decaying turbulence in the 1D Burgers equation (Burgulence) and 3D Navier-Stokes (NS) turbulence. We first investigate the decay in time $t$ of the energy $E(t)$ in Burgulence, for a fractional Brownian initial potential, with Hurst exponent $H$, and demonstrate rigorously a self-similar time-decay of $E(t)$, previously determined heuristically. This is a consequence of the nontrivial boundedness of the energy for any positive time. We define a spatially forgetful \textit{oblivious fractional Brownian motion} (OFBM), with Hurst exponent $H$, and prove that Burgulence, with an OFBM as initial potential $φ_0(x)$, is not only intermittent, but it also displays, a hitherto unanticipated, large-scale bifractality or multifractality; the latter occurs if we combine OFBMs, with different values of $H$. This is the first rigorous proof of genuine multifractality for turbulence in a nonlinear hydrodynamical partial differential equation. We then present direct numerical simulations (DNSs) of freely decaying turbulence, capturing some aspects of this multifractality. For Burgulence, we investigate such decay for two cases: (A) $φ_0(x)$ a multifractal random walk that crosses over to a fractional Brownian motion beyond a crossover scale $\mathcal{L}$, tuned to go from small- to large-scale multifractality; (B) initial energy spectra $E_0(k)$, with wavenumber $k$, having one or more power-law regions, which lead, respectively, to self-similar and non-self-similar energy decay. Our analogous DNSs of the 3D NS equations also uncover self-similar and non-self-similar energy decay. Challenges confronting the detection of genuine large-scale multifractality, in numerical and experimental studies of NS and MHD turbulence, are highlighted.