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Peter Constantin

Publications and source records attributed to Peter Constantin.

84 records · Page 5Linked to original sources
arXiv2006

Regularity of coupled two-dimensional nonlinear Fokker-Planck and Navier-Stokes systems

We consider systems of particles coupled with fluids. The particles are described by the evolution of their density, and the fluid is described by the Navier-Stokes equations. The particles add stress to the fluid and the fluid carries and deforms the particles. Because the particles perform rapid random motion, we assume that the density of particles is carried by a time average of the fluid velocity. The resulting coupled system is shown to have smooth solutions at all values of parameters, in two spatial dimensions.

math.AP↗
arXiv2002

Flame Enhancement and Quenching in Fluid Flows

We perform direct numerical simulations (DNS) of an advected scalar field which diffuses and reacts according to a nonlinear reaction law. The objective is to study how the bulk burning rate of the reaction is affected by an imposed flow. In particular, we are interested in comparing the numerical results with recently predicted analytical upper and lower bounds. We focus on reaction enhancement and quenching phenomena for two classes of imposed model flows with different geometries: periodic shear flow and cellular flow. We are primarily interested in the fast advection regime. We find that the bulk burning rate v in a shear flow satisfies v ~ a*U+b where U is the typical flow velocity and a is a constant depending on the relationship between the oscillation length scale of the flow and laminar front thickness. For cellular flow, we obtain v ~ U^{1/4}. We also study flame extinction (quenching) for an ignition-type reaction law and compactly supported initial data for the scalar field. We find that in a shear flow the flame of the size W can be typically quenched by a flow with amplitude U ~ alpha*W. The constant alpha depends on the geometry of the flow and tends to infinity if the flow profile has a plateau larger than a critical size. In a cellular flow, we find that the advection strength required for quenching is U ~ W^4 if the cell size is smaller than a critical value.

physics.flu-dyn↗
arXiv2002

Fronts in reactive convection: bounds, stability and instability

We consider front propagation in a reactive Boussinesq system in an infinite vertical strip. We establish nonlinear stability of planar fronts for narrow domains when the Rayleigh number is not too large. Planar fronts are shown to be linearly unstable with respect to long wavelength perturbations if the Rayleigh number is sufficiently large. We also prove uniform bounds on the bulk burning rate and the Nusselt number in the KPP reaction case.

nlin.CD↗
arXiv2002

Transport in Rotating Fluids

We consider uniformly rotating incompressible Euler and Navier-Stokes equations. We study the suppression of vertical gradients of Lagrangian displacement ("vertical" refers to the direction of the rotation axis). We employ a formalism that relates the total vorticity to the gradient of the back-to-labels map (the inverse Lagrangian map, for inviscid flows, a diffusive analogue for viscous flows). The results include a nonlinear version of the Taylor-Proudman theorem: in a steady solution of the rotating Euler equations, two fluid material points which were initially on a vertical vortex line, will perpetually maintain their vertical separation unchanged. For more general situations, including unsteady flows, we obtain bounds for the vertical gradients of the Lagrangian displacement that vanish linearly with the maximal local Rossby number.

math.AP↗
arXiv2002

Energy Spectrum of Quasi-Geostrophic Turbulence

We consider the energy spectrum of a quasi-geostrophic model of forced, rotating turbulent flow. We provide a rigorous a priori bound E(k) <= Ck^{-2} valid for wave numbers that are smaller than a wave number associated to the forcing injection scale. This upper bound separates this spectrum from the Kolmogorov-Kraichnan k^{-{5/3}} energy spectrum that is expected in a two-dimensional Navier-Stokes inverse cascade. Our bound provides theoretical support for the k^{-2} spectrum observed in recent experiments.

nlin.CD↗
arXiv2001

Near identity transformations for the Navier-Stokes equations

The Navier-Stokes equations and their various approximations can be described in terms of near identity maps, that are diffusive particle path transformations of physical space. The active velocity is obtained from the diffusive path transformation and a virtual velocity using the Weber formula. The active vorticity is obtained from the diffusive path transformation and a virtual vorticity using a Cauchy formula. The virtual velocity and the virtual vorticity obey diffusive equations, which reduce to passive advection formally, if the viscosity is zero. Apart from being proportional to the viscosity, the coefficients of these diffusion equations involve second derivatives of the near identity transformation and are related to the Christoffel coefficients. If and when the near-identity transformation departs excessively from the identity, one resets the calculation. Lower bounds on the minimum time between two successive resettings are given in terms of the maximum enstrophy.

math.AP↗
arXiv2000

Quenching of flames by fluid advection

We consider a simple scalar reaction-advection-diffusion equation with ignition-type nonlinearity and discuss the following question: What kinds of velocity profiles are capable of quenching any given flame, provided the velocity's amplitude is adequately large? Even for shear flows, the answer turns out to be surprisingly subtle. If the velocity profile changes in space so that it is nowhere identically constant, (or if it is identically constant only in a region of small measure) then the flow can quench any initial data. But if the velocity profile is identically constant in a sizable region, then the ensuing flow is incapable of quenching large enough flames, no matter how much larger is the amplitude of this velocity. The constancy region must be wider across than a couple of laminar propagating front-widths. The proof uses a linear PDE associated to the nonlinear problem and quenching follows when the PDE is hypoelliptic. The techniques used allow the derivation of new, nearly optimal bounds on the speed of traveling wave solutions.

nlin.CD↗
arXiv2000

Navier-Stokes equations and fluid turbulence

An Eulerian-Lagrangian approach to incompressible fluids that is convenient for both analysis and physics is presented. Bounds on burning rates in combustion and heat transfer in convection are discussed, as well as results concerning spectra.

math.AP↗
arXiv1999

Bulk Burning Rate in Passive - Reactive Diffusion

We consider a passive scalar that is advected by a prescribed mean zero divergence-free velocity field, diffuses, and reacts according to a KPP-type nonlinear reaction. We introduce a quantity, the bulk burning rate, that makes both mathematical and physical sense in general situations and extends the often ill-defined notion of front speed. We establish rigorous lower bounds for the bulk burning rate that are linear in the amplitude of the advecting velocity for a large class of flows. These "percolating" flows are characterized by the presence of tubes of streamlines connecting distant regions of burned and unburned material and generalize shear flows. The bound contains geometric information on the velocity streamlines and degenerates when these oscillate on scales that are finer than the width of the laminar burning region. We give also examples of very different kind of flows, cellular flows with closed streamlines, and rigorously prove that these can produce only sub-linear enhancement of the bulk burning rate.

math.AP↗
arXiv1998

Nonsingular Surface-Quasi-Geostrophic Flow

The dynamics of large eddies in the atmosphere and oceans is described by the surface quasi geostrophic equation, which is reminiscent of the Euler equations. Thermal fronts build up rapidly. Two different numerical methods combined with analytical criteria are used to show there are no singularities in finite time.

math.NA↗