Finite Scale Lyapunov Analysis of Temperature Fluctuations in Homogeneous Isotropic Turbulence

Abstract: This study analyzes the temperature fluctuations in incompressible homogeneous isotropic turbulence through the finite scale Lyapunov analysis of the relative motion between two fluid particles. The analysis provides an explanation of the mechanism of the thermal energy cascade, leads to the closure of the Corrsin equation, and describes the statistics of the longitudinal temperature derivative through the Lyapunov theory of the local deformation and the thermal energy equation. The results here obtained show that, in the case of self-similarity, the temperature spectrum exhibits the scaling laws $\kappa^n$, with $n \approx{-5/3}$, ${-1}$ and ${-17/3} \div -11/3$ depending upon the flow regime. These results are in agreement with the theoretical arguments of Obukhov--Corrsin and Batchelor and with the numerical simulations and experiments known from the literature. The PDF of the longitudinal temperature derivative is found to be a non--gaussian distribution function with null skewness, whose intermittency rises with the Taylor scale P\'eclet number. This study applies also to any passive scalar which exhibits diffusivity.