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Turbulence in stratified atmospheres: implications for the intracluster medium

The gas motions in the intracluster medium (ICM) are governed by stratified turbulence. Stratified turbulence is fundamentally different from Kolmogorov (isotropic, homogeneous) turbulence; kinetic energy not only cascades from large to small scales, but it is also converted into buoyancy potential energy. To understand the density and velocity fluctuations in the ICM, we conduct high-resolution ($1024^2\times 1536$ grid points) hydrodynamical simulations of subsonic turbulence (with rms Mach number $\mathcal{M}\approx 0.25$) and different levels of stratification, quantified by the Richardson number $\mathrm{Ri}$, from $\mathrm{Ri}=0$ (no stratification) to $\mathrm{Ri}=13$ (strong stratification). We quantify the density, pressure and velocity fields for varying stratification because observational studies often use surface brightness fluctuations to infer the turbulent gas velocities of the ICM. We find that the standard deviation of the logarithmic density fluctuations ($σ_s$), where $s=\ln(ρ/\left<ρ(z)\right>)$, increases with $\mathrm{Ri}$. For weakly stratified subsonic turbulence ($\mathrm{Ri}\lesssim10$, $\mathcal{M}<1$), we derive a new $σ_s$--$\mathcal{M}$--$\mathrm{Ri}$ relation, $σ_s^2=\ln(1+b^2\mathcal{M}^4+0.09\mathcal{M}^2\mathrm{Ri}H_P/H_S)$, where $b=1/3$--$1$ is the turbulence driving parameter, and $H_P$ and $H_S$ are the pressure and entropy scale heights respectively. We further find that the power spectrum of density fluctuations, $P(ρ_k/\left<ρ\right>)$, increases in magnitude with increasing $\mathrm{Ri}$, whereas the velocity power spectrum is invariant. Thus, the ratio between density and velocity power spectra strongly depends on $\mathrm{Ri}$. Pressure fluctuations, on the other hand, are independent of stratification and only depend on $\mathcal{M}$.