Statistics and structures of pressure and density in compressible isotropic turbulence.

We study statistics and structures of pressure and density in the presence of large-scale shock waves in a forced compressible isotropic turbulence using high-resolution numerical simulation. The spectra for pressure and density exhibit a −2 scaling over an operational definition of the inertial range. Both the numerical simulation and a heuristic PDF model reveal that the PDFs of pressure increment exhibit a −2 power law region for the separation in the operational definition of inertial range, quantitatively similar to the PDF of pressure gradient, which also displays a −2 power law region. Moreover, the statistical relation between density increment and pressure increment has been investigated through a shock-relation model. There is a positive correlation between the vorticity magnitude and pressure, which is different from the case of incompressible turbulence. We argue that this difference is due to large-scale shock waves, another type of intermittent structures in addition to vortex structures in incompressible turbulence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]