Universality in Decaying Turbulence at High Reynolds Numbers

In the limit of very large Reynolds numbers for homogeneous isotropic turbulence of an incompressible fluid, the statistics of the velocity differences between two points in space are expected to approach universal power laws at scales smaller than those at which energy is injected. Even at the highest Reynolds numbers available in laboratory and natural flows such universal power laws have remained elusive. On the other hand, power laws have been observed empirically in derived quantities, namely in the relative scaling in statistics of different orders according to the Extended Self Similarity hypothesis. Here we present experimental results from the Max Planck Variable Density Turbulence Tunnel over an unprecedented range of Reynolds numbers. We find that the velocity difference statistics take a universal functional form that is distinct from a power law. By applying a self-similar model derived for decaying turbulence to our data, an effective scaling exponent for the second moment can be derived that agrees well with that obtained from Extended Self Similarity.