Abstract Details


Name: Harshit Tiwari
Affiliation: Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur
Conference ID: TVS202510156
Title: Compressible turbulent convection at extreme Rayleigh numbers
Authors and Co-Authors:
Abstract Type: Contributory Presentation
Abstract: Solar convection is highly compressible, with strong density stratification and adiabatic temperature gradients shaping energy transport. We simulate compressible convection using DHARA, a high-performance code optimized for thousands of GPUs and CPUs, reaching Rayleigh numbers (Ra) up to Ra = 10^{16} in 2D—the highest to date—and Ra = 10^{13} in 3D. The heat transport (Nusselt number, Nu) follows the classical Nu ~ Ra^{1/3} scaling, in contrast to the predicted ultimate-regime scaling. We examine the adiabatic drop of bulk temperature with height at high Ra, and show that small pressure–buoyancy imbalances drive nonlinear effects yielding Reynolds number scaling as Ra^{1/2}. These results have direct relevance to heat transport in the solar convection zone.