Large-scale structures as gradient lines: The case of the trkal flow

Abstract

Based on expansion terms of the Beltrami-flow type, we use multiscale methods to effectively construct an asymptotic expansion at large Reynolds numbers R for the long-wavelength perturbation of the nonstationary anisotropic helical solution of the force-free Navier—Stokes equation (the Trkal solution). We prove that the systematic asymptotic procedure can be implemented only in the case where the scaling parameter is R1/2. Projections of quasistationary large-scale streamlines on a plane orthogonal to the anisotropy direction turn out to be the gradient lines of the energy density determined by the initial conditions for two modulated anisotropic Beltrami flows (modulated as a result of scaling) with the same eigenvalues of the curl operator. The three-dimensional streamlines and the curl lines, not coinciding, fill invariant vorticity tubes inside which the velocity and vorticity vectors are collinear up to terms of the order of 1/R.