Work

Growth of helicity in salt-finger convection in the two-dimensional three-component limit

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: We present an analytical investigation of the global helicity budget associated with the salt-fingering instability within the two-dimensional, three-component framework. Our analysis shows that in the region of parameter space corresponding to salt fingering, helicity amplification occurs when the Rayleigh ratio-quantifying the relative strength of salinity to temperature gradients-exceeds a critical threshold. This finding provides a possible theoretical explanation for the spontaneous emergence of helicity, observed in recent numerical simulations.

Source: Physical review. E

DOI: 10.1103/rrcr-h8l9

Authors: Smiron Varghese, Benjamin Miquel, Wouter J. T. Bos

Institutions: Lyon 1 Université, École Centrale de Lyon, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Laboratoire de Mécanique des Fluides et d'Acoustique, Institut National des Sciences Appliquées de Lyon

Language: English

Topic: Fluid Dynamics and Turbulent Flows

Subfield: Computational Mechanics

Field: Engineering

Domain: Physical Sciences

Open Access status: green

Funder: Agence Nationale de la Recherche

Award: Rapidly rotating turbulent convection: heat transfer and large scale structures in geophysically-relevant geometries