Turbulent gravitational wakes
Abstract
We construct turbulent gravitational wakes in asymptotically AdS4 spacetimes by solving the full non-linear Einstein equations in the characteristic formulation. Specifically, we show that a localized boundary deformation acting on a boosted black brane generates a wake whose boundary dynamics exhibit the formation of coherent vortical structures that are advected downstream by the background flow. Analysing a wake propagating along the x direction, we show that it displays the characteristic self-similar scaling of classical turbulent wakes. We then identify the geometric imprint of the wake on the horizon area density, the traceless horizon extrinsic curvature, and bulk metric perturbations, finding coherent structures that extend from the asymptotic boundary to the horizon. These results provide the first study of turbulent gravitational wakes in four-dimensional asymptotically AdS spacetimes.
Related
- No evidence of vorticity production from irrotational turbulent gravitational collapse yet
- Swallowtail catastrophes in supercritical capillary-gravity wakes generated by unsteady motion
- Machine-learning-assisted phase-amplitude reduction for fast synchronization of airfoil wakes with constrained fluctuations
- Interior-fold and endpoint transitions in finite-depth capillary-gravity ship wakes
- Dissipation scaling in wind turbine wakes exposed to free-stream turbulence
BibTeX
@misc{taiocchi2026turbulent,
title = {{Turbulent gravitational wakes}},
author = {Giulio Taiocchi and Christiana Pantelidou and Miguel Zilhão},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.18295},
eprint = {2609.18295},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.18295},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Turbulent gravitational wakes
AU - Giulio Taiocchi
AU - Christiana Pantelidou
AU - Miguel Zilhão
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/17
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.18295
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.18295
AB - We construct turbulent gravitational wakes in asymptotically AdS_4 spacetimes by solving the full non-linear Einstein equations in the characteristic formulation. Specifically, we show that a localized boundary deformation acting on a boosted black brane generates a wake whose boundary dynamics exhibit the formation of coherent vortical structures that are advected downstream by the background flow. Analysing a wake propagating along the x direction, we show that it displays the characteristic self-similar scaling of classical turbulent wakes. We then identify the geometric imprint of the wake on the horizon area density, the traceless horizon extrinsic curvature, and bulk metric perturbations, finding coherent structures that extend from the asymptotic boundary to the horizon. These results provide the first study of turbulent gravitational wakes in four-dimensional asymptotically AdS spacetimes.
ER -