Regime transition in the energy cascade of rotating turbulence

Abstract

Transition from a split to a forward kinetic energy cascade system is explored in the context of rotating turbulence using direct numerical simulations with a three-dimensional isotropic random force uncorrelated with the velocity field. Our parametric study covers confinement effects in high-aspect-ratio domains and a broad range of rotation rates. The data presented here add substantially to previous works, which, in contrast, focused on smaller and shallower domains. Results indicate that for fixed geometrical dimensions the Rossby number acts as a control parameter, whereas for a fixed Rossby number the product of the domain size along the rotation axis and the forcing wave number governs the amount of energy that cascades inversely. The regime transition criterion hence depends on both control parameters.