Numerical study of three-dimensional developments of premixed flame induced by multiple shock waves

The three-dimensional interactions of a perturbed premixed flame interface with a planar incident shock wave and its reflected shock waves are numerically simulated by solving the compressible,reactive Navier-Stokes equations with the high-resolution scheme and a single-step chemical reaction.The effects of the initial incident shock wave strength (Mach number) and the initial perturbation pattern of interface on the interactions are investigated.The distinct properties of perturbation growth on the flame interface during the interactions are presented.Our results show that perturbation growth is mainly attributed to the flame stretching and propagation.The flame stretching is associated with the larger-scale vortical flow due to RichtmyerMeshkov instability while the flame propagation is due to the chemical reaction.The mixing properties of unburned/burned gases on both sides of the flame are quantitatively analyzed by using integral and statistical diagnostics.The results show that the large-scale flow due to the vortical motion always plays a dominating role during the reactive interaction process;however,the effect of chemistry becomes more important at the later stage of the interactions,especially for higher Mach number cases.The scalar dissipation due to the molecular diffusion is always small in the present study and can be negligible.

Case study of an Equatorial Plasma Bubble Event investigated by multiple ground-based instruments at low latitudes over China

Observational evidence is insufficient to understand how equatorial plasma bubbles(EPBs)form over low latitudes.The mechanism of plasma-density enhancement(formation of"plasma blobs")at low latitudes is in dispute.In this paper,we use data from multiple ground-based instruments(one all-sky airglow imager,five digisondes,and one Fabry–Perot interferometer)to investigate the evolution of an EPB event that occurred at low latitudes over China on the night of 06 December 2015(06-Dec-2015).We provide observational evidence that an enhanced equatorward wind most likely induced by a substorm could have initiated the Rayleigh–Taylor instability(RTI)that destabilized several EPB depletions in an upwelling region of a large-scale wave-like structure(LSWS)in the bottomside ionosphere.Those EPB depletions were forced to surge poleward,from nearly 10°to 19°magnetic latitude,two hours before midnight.Smaller-scale bifurcations evolved rapidly from tips of airglow depletions by a secondary E×B instability when the aforementioned substorm-induced southwestward wind blew through.During the growth phase of the EPB depletions,a westward polarization electric field inside the LSWS is likely to have compressed plasma downward,inducing the two airglow-type blobs observed in the bottomside ionosphere,by a mechanism of LSWS-blob connection that we propose.We also provide observational evidence of brightness airglow depletions.We find that an enhanced poleward wind associated with a passing-by brightness wave(BW)is likely to have transported plasma to fill the airglow depletions,which finally evolved into brightness airglow structures.This study investigates the physical processes accompanied by the EPB event and those two-airglow blobs observed at low-latitudes over China.

On the Path from the Turbulent Vortex Dynamo Theory to Diagnosis of Tropical Cyclogenesis

An overview of researches is presented, which was focused on application of a theoretical hypothesis on the turbulent vortex dynamo to the study of tropical cyclogenesis. The dynamo effect is related to the special properties of small-scale helical turbulence with the broken mirror symmetry and was hypothesized to result in large-scale vortices generation in both hydrodynamic and atmospheric turbulence. To introduce this abstract theory into tropical cyclone research, a recent discovery of vortical moist convection in the tropics is emphasized. Based on this finding, we discuss and substantiate the crucial role of rotating cumulonimbus clouds, known as vortical hot towers (VHTs), as a necessary element to provide the dynamo effect. An analogy is traced between the role of interaction “moist convection—vertical wind shear” in creating the vortex dynamo in the atmosphere and the role of the mean electromotive force providing the MHD dynamo in electrically conducting medium. Throughout the review of novel results, a pivotal role of the Russian-American collaboration on examining a helical self-organization of moist convective atmospheric turbulence under tropical cyclone formation by use of cloud-resolving numerical simulation is accented. The efforts resulted in application of the vortex dynamo theory to diagnose a time when cyclogenesis commences in a favorable tropical environment. This may help elaborate a universally accepted definition of tropical cyclogenesis that currently does not exist and contribute to practical purposes of diagnosis and forecasting.

Nonlinear density fluctuation field theory for large scale structure

We develop an effective field theory of density fluctuations for a Newtonian self-gravitating N-body system in quasi-equilibrium and apply it to a homogeneous universe with small density fluctuations. Keeping the density fluctuations up to second or- der, we obtain the nonlinear field equation of 2-pt correlation ξ（r）, which contains 3-pt correlation and formal ultra-violet divergences. By the Groth-Peebles hierarchical ansatz and mass renormalization, the equation becomes closed with two new terms beyond the Gaussian approximation, and their coefficients are taken as parameters. The analytic solution is obtained in terms of the hypergeometric functions, which is checked numerically. With one single set of two fixed parameters, the correlation ξ（r） and the corresponding power spectrum P（k） simultaneously match the results from all the major surveys, such as APM, SDSS, 2dfGRS, and REFLEX. The model gives a unifying understanding of several seemingly unrelated features of large scale structure from a field-theoretical perspective. The theory is worth extending to study the evolution effects in an expanding universe.