Astrophysical significance of the dissipation of turbulence in a dense baryon fluid

Abstract

At a baryon density of the order of 10 39 cm -3 , the most important dissipative term in the fluid stress tensor is the second coefficient of viscosity which represents a relaxation effect con­nected with the non-leptonic weak interaction Ʃ¯p ⇌ nn. In the decay of turbulence the power dissipated through the second viscosity is proportional to the sixth power of the r. m. s. turbulent velocity, and the characteristic time is of the order of 10 -2 s. The development and dissipation of turbulence in the late stages of gravitational collapse of a rapidly rotating system could be an efficient mechanism for the conversion of gravitational to other forms of energy.