Transitions in turbulent rotating Rayleigh-Benard convection

Abstract

Numerical simulations of rotating Rayleigh-Benard convection are presented for both no slip and free slip boundaries. The goal is to find a criterion distinguishing convective flows dominated by the Coriolis force from those nearly unaffected by rotation. If one uses heat transport as an indicator of which regime the flow is in, one finds that the transition between the flow regimes always occurs at the same value of a certain combination of Reynolds, Prandtl and Ekman numbers for both boundary conditions. If on the other hand one uses the helicity of the velocity field to identify flows nearly independent of rotation, one finds the transition at a different location in parameter space.