Active Turbulence

By Ricard Alert, Jaume Casademunt, J. Joanny. Annual Review of Condensed Matter Physics, 2021

293 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Active fluids exhibit spontaneous flows with complex spatiotemporal structure, which have been observed in bacterial suspensions, sperm cells, cytoskeletal suspensions, self-propelled colloids, and cell tissues. Despite occurring in the absence of inertia, chaotic active flows are reminiscent of inertial turbulence, and hence they are known as active turbulence. Here, we survey the field, providing a unified perspective over different classes of active turbulence. To this end, we divide our review in sections for systems with either polar or nematic order, and with or without momentum conservation (wet or dry). Comparing to inertial turbulence, we highlight the emergence of power-law scaling with either universal or nonuniversal exponents. We also contrast scenarios for the transition from steady to chaotic flows, and we discuss the absence of energy cascades. We link this feature to both the existence of intrinsic length scales and the self-organized nature of energy injection in active turbulence, which are fundamental differences with inertial turbulence. We close by outlining the emerging picture, remaining challenges, and future directions. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Condensed Matter Physics, Volume 13 is March 2022. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

Subfields: Computer Networks and Communications, Condensed Matter Physics, Materials Chemistry

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/5b969df1e266efa5ef32b0306ffcdfff3ecf06c3

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Computer Networks and Communications

1. M. Cristina Marchetti
2. S. Ramaswamy

In Condensed Matter Physics

1. M. Cristina Marchetti
2. V. Vitelli
3. M. Bowick
4. Anton Souslov
5. N. Fakhri
6. Suraj Shankar
7. S. Ramaswamy
8. Andreas Menzel

In Materials Chemistry

1. Anton Souslov
2. V. Vitelli
3. M. Cristina Marchetti
4. S. Ramaswamy
5. M. Bowick

Citations in the corpus

• Topological active matter (2020, background): “The phenomenology and scaling properties of active turbulence have been reviewed in recent years 39,97 .”
• Symmetry, Thermodynamics, and Topology in Active Matter (2021, background): “[37] Ricard Alert, Jaume Casademunt, and Jean-”