Astron. Astrophys. 347, 734-738 (1999)

Appendix A: on Zeldovich's analysis of Taylor's results

Zeldovich (1981) had a similar goal in mind when he analyzed the results of Taylor's experiment. But he started from the idea that the turbulent flow was governed by the epicyclic frequency and the turnover frequency , where

since they measure respectively the stability of the flow and the strength of the shear. He defines a non-dimensional parameter , akin to the Richardson number used in stratified shear flow, and he seeks the confirmation of his intuition that Ty be constant in Taylor's turbulent rotation profiles, in which case the angular velocity would obey a power law

His best fit yields . However these profiles are contaminated by the Ekman circulation mentioned above, and they differ marquedly from those obtained by Wendt.

A consequence of this constant Ty would be that the parameter in (4) would vary as

a property which is not substantiated by the combined results of Taylor and Wendt, as can be seen in Fig. 2.

© European Southern Observatory (ESO) 1999

Online publication: June 30, 1999
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