Self-organization and transition to turbulence in isotropic fluid motion driven by negative damping at low wavenumbers

Abstract

We observe a symmetry-breaking transition from a turbulent to a self-organized state in direct numerical simulation of the Navier-Stokes equation at very low Reynolds number. In this self-organized state the kinetic energy is contained only in modes at the lowest resolved wavenumber, the skewness vanishes, and visualization of the flows shows a lack of small-scale structure, with the vorticity and velocity vectors becoming aligned (a Beltrami flow).