Shocks, Solitons and Turbulence Unit (Emile Touber)

FY2022 Annual Report

Shocks, Solitons and Turbulence Unit

Associate Professor Emile Touber

Abstract

The Shocks, Solitons and Turbulence (S2T) Unit carries out theoretical and computational studies of energy transfers and transport arising from shock/solitary waves and turbulence. We work on a variety of problems (from cosmic to biological scales) expressed in terms of (i) fields obeying some form of conservation laws, (ii) closed using physics-based or simple behavioural arguments, (iii) and found in a turbulent and/or shocked regime.

This report highlights some key moments of the fiscal year. This year we have focused our attention on the study of waves in trees (sap flows) to waves the size of Earth (Tonga eruption). Every project we run is centred around modelling and simulation efforts together with experimental observations. Not being experimentalists ourselves, we invested significant ressources (e.g. manpower time, equipments, data) and collaborative efforts to acquire observation data of the complex dynamical processes we study.

1. Staff

Emile Touber, Associate Professor
Adel Rodriguez, Postdoctoral Researcher
Roman Mukhin, Technician
Stephen Winn, Technician
Yussuf Ali, Technician
Andre Krichikov, Technician
Saori Chappell, Research Unit Administrator

2. Collaborations

2.1 Space weather

Description: Impact of the solar activity on the Earth's upper-atmosphere.
Type of collaboration: Joint research
Researchers:
- Professor Ryuho Kataoka, NIPR (Tokyo)
- Professor Hiroko Miyahara, Musashino Art University (Tokyo)

2.2 dNami: Computational framework to solve systems of balance laws

Description: In-house solver developed in collaboration with CNAM/ENSAM (France).
Type of collaboration: Joint research
Researchers:
- Professor Nicolas Alferez, CNAM/ENSAM (Paris)

3. Activities and Findings

The S2T unit is particularly interested in how physical principles such as mass conservation, momentum and energy transfers, work to produce wave phenomena, patterns and/or chaos. This year we study these questions mostly in the context of coupled atmosphere-ocean dynamics and water movement in trees. Please refer to the references therein or future reports for details.

4. Publications

4.1 Journals

Winn S.D., Sarmiento A.F., Alferez N., Touber E. Two-way coupled long-wave isentropic ocean-atmosphere dynamics. Journal of Fluid Mechanics, doi:10.1017/jfm.2023.131(2023)

4.2 Books and other one-time publications

Winn S.D., Touber E., Sarmiento A.F. Code and data for "Two-way coupled long-wave isentropic ocean-atmosphere dynamics". Zenodo, doi:10.5281/zenodo.7197430