Tubes, Sheets and Singularities in Fluid Dynamics

Book excerpt: Modern experiments and numerical simulations show that the long-known coherent structures in turbulence take the form of elongated vortex tubes and vortex sheets. The evolution of vortex tubes may result in spiral structures which can be associated with the spectral power laws of turbulence. The mutual stretching of skewed vortex tubes, when they are close to each other, causes rapid growth of vorticity. Whether this process may or may not lead to a finite-time singularity is one of the famous open problems of fluid dynamics. This book contains the proceedings of the NATO ARW and IUTAM Symposium held in Zakopane, Poland, 2-7 September 2001. The papers presented, carefully reviewed by the International Scientific Committee, cover various aspects of the dynamics of vortex tubes and sheets and of their analogues in magnetohydrodynamics and in quantum turbulence. The book should be a useful reference for all researchers and students of modern fluid dynamics.