Stochastic partial differential fluid equations as a diffusive limit of deterministic Lagrangian multi-time dynamics.

In Holm (Holm 2015 Proc. R. Soc. A471, 20140963. (doi:10.1098/rspa.2014.0963)), stochastic fluid equations were derived by employing a variational principle with an assumed stochastic Lagrangian particle dynamics. Here we show that the same stochastic Lagrangian dynamics naturally arises in a multi-scale decomposition of the deterministic Lagrangian flow map into a slow large-scale mean and a rapidly fluctuating small-scale map. We employ homogenization theory to derive effective slow stochastic particle dynamics for the resolved mean part, thereby obtaining stochastic fluid partial equations in the Eulerian formulation. To justify the application of rigorous homogenization theory, we assume mildly chaotic fast small-scale dynamics, as well as a centring condition. The latter requires that the mean of the fluctuating deviations is small, when pulled back to the mean flow.

Unifying scaling theory for vortex dynamics in two-dimensional turbulence.

We present a scaling theory for unforced inviscid two-dimensional turbulence. Our model unifies existing spatial and temporal scaling theories. The theory is based on a self-similar distribution of vortices of different sizes A. Our model uniquely determines the spatial and temporal scaling of the associated vortex number density which allows the determination of the energy spectra and the vortex distributions. We find that the vortex number density scales as n(A,t)-t(-2/3)/A, which implies an energy spectrum E-k(-5), significantly steeper than the classical Batchelor-Kraichnan scaling. High-resolution numerical simulations corroborate the model.

An integrable shallow water equation with linear and nonlinear dispersion.

We use asymptotic analysis and a near-identity normal form transformation from water wave theory to derive a 1+1 unidirectional nonlinear wave equation that combines the linear dispersion of the Korteweg-deVries (KdV) equation with the nonlinear/nonlocal dispersion of the Camassa-Holm (CH) equation. This equation is one order more accurate in asymptotic approximation beyond KdV, yet it still preserves complete integrability via the inverse scattering transform method. Its traveling wave solutions contain both the KdV solitons and the CH peakons as limiting cases.