ASTR/ATOC-5410: Fluid Instabilities, Waves, and Turbulence

  • Syllabus.
  • Further reading
  • Other useful links: ADS, astro-ph, solar/stellar (recent),
  • The following links are most recent on my Boulder page, but not the Nordita page.

    Week 1

  • Monday, Aug 22: Lecture 0
  • Wednesday, Aug 24: Lecture 1, Homework problems 1 (Thermal Instability)
  • Friday, Aug 26: Lecture 2 (Magneto-rotational Instability)

    Week 2

  • Monday, Aug 29: Lecture 3, (Rayleigh-Benard Instability: free-slip boundaries), chapter 11.4 of KCD; see also the historical perspective of S C Brown (1957)
  • Wednesday, Aug 31: Lecture 4 (Rayleigh-Benard Instability: no-slip boundaries)
  • Friday, Sep 2: Lecture 5 (Rayleigh-Benard Instability: no-slip boundaries, cont'd)

    Week 3

  • Wednesday, Sep 7: Homework problems 2, Lecture 6 (weakly nonlinear theory)
  • Friday, Sep 9: further reading (weakly nonlinear theory, cont'd), Lecture 7

    Week 4

  • Monday, Sep 12: Lecture 8 [pdf], Handout 6b (Double-diffusive instability)
  • Wednesday, Sep 14: Knobloch et al. (1986) (Double-diffusive instability, cont'd)
  • Friday, Sep 16: Handout 7 (Inflection point instability)

    Week 5

  • Monday, Sep 19: Homework problems 1 (with key), comments [pdf], Handout 8 (Fjørtoft's more stringent inflection point criterion)
  • Wednesday, Sep 21: Homework problems 3, IDL sample (numerical solution to Rayleigh's instability equation)
  • Friday, Sep 23: Handout 9, IDL sample (stratified shear flows)

    Week 6

  • Monday, Sep 26: Homework problems 2 (with key), IDL sample, additional notes (MRI with inclined field)
  • Wednesday, Sep 28: Handout 10, IDL sample (eigenfunctions as vectors in the xy plane)
  • Friday, Sep 30: Handout 11, extra key to homework problems 2, nothing spooky about avoided crossing [wiki], Aizenman et al.,

    Week 7

  • Monday, Oct 3: Handout 12 (acoustic cavity)
  • Wednesday, Oct 5: Handout 12b, presentation [pdf] (global helioseismology)
  • Friday, Oct 7: Preparation for midterm exam

    Week 8

  • Monday, Oct 10: Jeans (1902), Mathematical Vindications of the "Jeans Swindle" [astro-ph/9910247]. Preparation for midterm exam (with key)
  • Wednesday, Oct 12: Midterm exam
  • Friday, Oct 14: midterm exam (key)

    Week 9

  • Monday, Oct 17: midterm: scores, project topics
  • Wednesday, Oct 19: Homework problems 4, Homework problems 3 (with key).
  • Friday, Oct 21: Visit to Dispersive Hydrodynamics Lab, biondini-solitons.detail, Zabusky-Kruskal paper

    Week 10

  • Monday, Oct 24: Project details, Handout 13, Handout 13b (dynamo instability)
  • Wednesday, Oct 26: Handout 14 (Solutions of the KdV equation, analytical/numerical)
  • Friday, Oct 28: Handout 14b (derivation of KdV) [lecture notes on the internet, notes by Segur/Grisouad]

    Week 11

  • Monday, Oct 31: Handout 15 (homogeneous turbulence 1)
  • Wednesday, Nov 2: Handout 15b (homogeneous turbulence 1b)
  • Friday, Nov 4: Homework problems 5

    Week 12

  • Monday, Nov 7: Handout 16 (bottleneck effect in turbulence)
  • Wednesday, Nov 9: Handout 17 (vorticity and Karman-Howarth relation)
  • Friday, Nov 11: More on project details,

    Week 13

  • Monday, Nov 14: additional project descriptions on TaylerInstability, StratoRotationalInstability, data access to decaying turbulence runs.
  • Wednesday, Nov 16: Handout 18 (decaying turbulence)
  • Friday, Nov 18: Handout 19 (inverse cascases in turbulence)

    Week 14

  • Monday, Nov 28: Homework problems 4 (key),
  • Wednesday, Nov 30: Handout 20 (magnetic diffusivity)
  • Friday, Dec 2: Handout 21 (stellar differential rotation)

    Week 15

  • Monday, Dec 5: Handout 22 (turbulent transport)
  • Wednesday, Dec 7: no lecture, project presentations on Dec 14 at 10:00 instead.
  • Friday, Dec 9: Homework problems 5 (key, still only partial),

    Week 16

  • Wednesday, Dec 14: project presentations Homework problems 5 (with key),

    Russell's Soliton Wave arXiv:math/0602661 D.J. Korteweg and G. de Vries KdV paper

    Numerical Experiments (local copy, see bottom of the page Mixed Topics)

    Brandenburg, A., Andersen, A. C., Höfner, S., & Nilsson, M.: 2005, ``Homochiral growth through enantiomeric cross-inhibition,'' Orig. Life Evol. Biosph. 35, 225-241 (q-bio/0401036, ADS, PDF)



    Axel Brandenburg
    $Date: 2016/12/18 23:24:28 $, $Author: brandenb $, $Revision: 1.37 $