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Quantum turbulent flows: a model for classical turbulence?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 October 2025

Luca Galantucci*
Affiliation:
Istituto per le Applicazioni del Calcolo ‘Mauro Picone’, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, via dei Taurini 19, 00185 Roma, Italy
*
Corresponding author: Luca Galantucci, luca.galantucci@cnr.it

Abstract

Quantum turbulence is characterised by the collective motion of mutually interplaying thin and discrete vortex filaments of fixed circulation which move in two mutually interacting fluid components. Despite this very peculiar nature determined by quantum-mechanical effects, turbulence in quantum fluids may exhibit very similar features to classical turbulence in terms of the vortex dynamics, energy spectrum and decay and intermittency. The recent work by Blaha et al. (2025 J. Fluid. Mech. 1015, A57) reveals an additional classical behaviour of quantum turbulence, by showing that the trajectories of starting vortices shed by accelerating airfoils in a quantum fluid are almost indistinguishable from their counterpart in classical viscous flows. These results strongly support the suggestive idea that turbulent flows, both classical and quantum, may be described by the collective dynamics of interacting, thin and discrete filaments of fixed circulation.

Information

Type
Focus on Fluids
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press