Turbulence, a quintessential non-equilibrium phenomenon, occurs in atmospheric flows, ocean currents, Earth’s molten core, the solar atmosphere, convective zones in stars, interstellar clouds, arms of spiral galaxies. Cyclones, ash plumes from volcano eruptions, jet streams, rapids in rivers, and winds past high land masses are all examples of naturally occurring turbulent flows on Earth. The Great Red Spot of Jupiter and solar flares are two examples of extraterrestrial turbulent motion. Turbulence can also be created in superfluid flows and is believed to be present in the superfluid cores of neutron stars. These indicate manifestation of turbulence in vastly different systems and on vastly different scales, which makes it difficult to even precisely define the phenomena. 

The school will consist of a series of pedagogical lectures and expository research seminars.

Broad topics: 

• Introduction to physics of fluids.

• Rotating and stratified flows. Inertial and Rossby waves. Internal and gravity waves. 

• Phenomenology of classical fluid turbulence. Wave turbulence. 

• Rotating turbulence. Stratified turbulence. 

• Magnetohydrodynamic flows and plasma. 

• The Lagrangian approach to turbulence. 

• Computational approaches to geophysical fluid dynamics. Parallelization methods.

• Fluid flows and active matter.

• Superfluid flows. Quantum turbulence.

School will also include a GIAN course on "Computational Geophysical Fluid Dynamics" by Pablo Mininni, University of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Tentative outline.

Lecturers and potential speakers

Akshay Bhatnagar, IIT Palakkad

Jason Picardo, IIT Bombay

Kannabiran Seshasayanan, IIT Kharagpur

Nairita Pal, Coral, IIT Kharagpur

Pablo D. Mininni, University of Buenos Aires

Pintu Patra, IIT Kharagpur

Prateek Sharma, IISc Bengaluru

P S Burada, IIT Kharagpur

Rahul Pandit, IISc Bengaluru

Somnath Ghosh, IIT Kharagpur

Supratik Banerjee, IIT Kanpur

Vishwanath Shukla, IIT Kharagpur

Dates

Venue: Department of Physics, IIT Kharagpur

Application deadline: 19 November 2023.

Letter of recommendation must be emailed to the email id: iitkgpspcs@gmail.com .