Titre/Title : Subcritical Explorations in Taylor-Couette Flow : from Barbershop Spirals to Astrophysical Disks
Contact : Joel Sommeria (équipe MEIGE)
Résumé/Abstract :
Decades of research of circular Couette flow has largely focused on regimes where the angular momentum decreases with radius, which leads to Taylor vortices. However other instabilities may be manifest when the angular momentum increases with radius, depending on the orientation of flow rotation with respect to its shear, i.e. on cyclonicity. I will review some recent results from both cyclonic and anticyclonic experiments at high Reynolds number (10³-10⁶). The cyclonic regime can lead to turbulent spots and spirals, while the anti-cyclonic regime has implications for turbulent transport in astrophysical disks ; though in making such an extrapolation, the effect of boundaries needs to be carefully managed.