Correspondence principle for turbulence: Application to the Chicago experiments on high Rayleigh number Bénard convection

Abstract

The correspondence principle postulated for the description of hydrodynamic turbulence [Phys. Rev. Lett. 57, 1722 (1986)] combined with the theory of thermal boundary layer [B. Castaing et al. (private communication)] is applied to high Rayleigh number convection in a Bénard cell. Quantitative interpretation of recent experimental data [B. Castaing et al. (private communication)] is presented. The predicted intermittency exponent following from comparison of the theory with experiment is 0.175<μ<0.275. A crucial experimental test of the renormalization group theory of turbulence is proposed.