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Updated: Jun 23, 2026

Simultaneous Measurement of Turbulence and Particle Kinematics Using Flow Imaging Techniques
Published on: March 12, 2019
Random changes of flow topology in two-dimensional and geophysical turbulence
Freddy Bouchet1, Eric Simonnet
1INLN, CNRS, UNSA, 1361 route des lucioles, 06560 Valbonne, France. Freddy.Bouchet@inln.cnrs.fr
Abstract:
We study the two-dimensional (2D) stochastic Navier-Stokes (SNS) equations in the inertial limit of weak forcing and dissipation. The stationary measure is concentrated close to steady solutions of the 2D Euler equations. For such inertial flows, we prove that bifurcations in the flow topology occur either by changing the domain shape, the nonlinearity of the vorticity-stream-function relation, or the energy. Associated with this, we observe bistable behavior in SNS with random changes from dipoles to unidirectional flows. The theoretical explanation being very general, we infer the existence of similar phenomena in experiments and in some regimes of geophysical flows.
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