Phase transitions and flux-loop metastable states in rotating turbulence

By using direct numerical simulations of up to a resolution of 512 x 512 x 32 768 grid points we discover the existence of a metastable out-of-equilibrium state in rotating turbulence. We scan the phase space by varying both the rotation rate (proportional to the inverse of the Rossby number, Ro) and the dimensionless aspect ratio, lambda = H/L, where L and H are the sizes of the domain perpendicular and parallel to the direction of rotation, respectively. We show the existence of three turbulent phases. For small Ro but finite lambda, we have a split cascade where the injected energy is transferred to both large and small scales. For large A and finite Ro there is no inverse cascade and the energy is transferred downscale in Fourier space only. Surprisingly, between these two regimes, a third phase is observed as reported here. Consequently, for certain intervals of Ro and lambda, energy is no longer accumulated at arbitrarily large scales; rather, it stops at some characteristic intermediate length scales from where it is then redistributed forward in Fourier space, leading to a flux-loop mechanism where the flow is out of equilibrium with vanishing net flux and nonvanishing heterochiral and homochiral subfluxes. The system is further characterized by the presence of metastability explaining why previous numerical simulations were not able to detect this phenomenon, requiring an extremely long observation time and huge computational resources.