Wave-driven geostrophic vortices in rotating turbulence
Abstract
We perform direct numerical simulations of rotating turbulence to investigate the mechanisms responsible for the maintenance of large-scale geostrophic vortices. We confirm that the Reynolds stresses generated by inertial waves are consistent with the Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes balance of the large-scale flow and demonstrate the predicted cyclone-anticyclone asymmetry, with cyclones exhibiting stronger azimuthal velocities and more compact cores. Wave-field analysis provides evidence that geostrophic vortices selectively reflect and absorb inertial waves according to the sign of their angular momentum. Wave absorption occurs either through the formation of a critical layer ahead of the reflection point or through enhanced viscous dissipation associated with increasing local wavenumber. As rotation increases, fewer inertial waves undergo resonant absorption, reducing angular-momentum transfer to the vortices and weakening the geostrophic flow. Consequently, the fraction of energy contained in geostrophic modes depends non-monotonically on the rotation rate, demonstrating that sufficiently rapid rotation can ultimately suppress, rather than enhance, turbulence two-dimensionalization.
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BibTeX
@misc{parfenyev2026wavedriven,
title = {{Wave-driven geostrophic vortices in rotating turbulence}},
author = {Vladimir Parfenyev and Sergey Vergeles},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2610.15863},
eprint = {2610.15863},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.15863},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Wave-driven geostrophic vortices in rotating turbulence
AU - Vladimir Parfenyev
AU - Sergey Vergeles
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/11
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2610.15863
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.15863
AB - We perform direct numerical simulations of rotating turbulence to investigate the mechanisms responsible for the maintenance of large-scale geostrophic vortices. We confirm that the Reynolds stresses generated by inertial waves are consistent with the Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes balance of the large-scale flow and demonstrate the predicted cyclone-anticyclone asymmetry, with cyclones exhibiting stronger azimuthal velocities and more compact cores. Wave-field analysis provides evidence that geostrophic vortices selectively reflect and absorb inertial waves according to the sign of their angular momentum. Wave absorption occurs either through the formation of a critical layer ahead of the reflection point or through enhanced viscous dissipation associated with increasing local wavenumber. As rotation increases, fewer inertial waves undergo resonant absorption, reducing angular-momentum transfer to the vortices and weakening the geostrophic flow. Consequently, the fraction of energy contained in geostrophic modes depends non-monotonically on the rotation rate, demonstrating that sufficiently rapid rotation can ultimately suppress, rather than enhance, turbulence two-dimensionalization.
ER -