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Extreme velocity gradients in turbulent flows

Fully turbulent flows are characterized by intermittent formation of very localized and intense velocity gradients. These gradients can be orders of magnitude larger than their typical value and lead to many unique properties of turbulence. Using direct numerical simulations of the Navier-Stokes equations with unprecedented small-scale resolution, we characterize such extreme events over a significant range of turbulence intensities, parameterized by the Taylor-scale Reynolds number ($R_λ$). Remarkably, we find the strongest velocity gradients to empirically scale as $τ_K^{-1} R_λ^β$, with $β\approx 0.775 \pm 0.025$, where $τ_K$ is the Kolmogorov time scale (with its inverse, $τ_K^{-1}$, being the {r.m.s.} of velocity gradient fluctuations). Additionally, we observe velocity increments across very small distances $r \le η$, where $η$ is the Kolmogorov length scale, to be as large as the {r.m.s.} of the velocity fluctuations. Both observations suggest that the smallest length scale in the flow behaves as $ηR_λ^{-α}$, with $α= β- \frac{1}{2}$, which is at odds with predictions from existing phenomenological theories. We find that extreme gradients are arranged in vortex tubes, such that strain conditioned on vorticity grows on average slower than vorticity, approximately as a power law with an exponent $γ< 1$, which weakly increases with $R_λ$. Using scaling arguments, we get $β=(2-γ)^{-1}$, which suggests that $β$ would also slowly increase with $R_λ$. We conjecture that approaching the limit of infinite $R_λ$, the flow is overall smooth, with intense velocity gradients over scale $ ηR_λ^{-1/2}$, corresponding to $β= 1$.