Synchronization of low Reynolds number plane Couette turbulence
Marios-Andreas Nikolaidis, Petros J. Ioannou
Abstract
We demonstrate that in plane Couette turbulence a separation of the velocity field in large and small scales according to a streamwise Fourier decomposition allows us to identify an active subspace comprising a small number of the gravest streamwise components of the flow that can synchronize all the remaining streamwise flow components. The critical streamwise wavelength, $\ell _{x c}$ , that separates the active from the synchronized passive subspace is identified as the streamwise wavelength at which perturbations to the time-dependent turbulent flow with streamwise wavelengths $\ell _x<\ell _{xc}$ have negative characteristic Lyapunov exponents. The critical wavelength is found to be approximately 130 wall units and obeys viscous scaling at these Reynolds numbers.