Onset of Intermittency and Multiscaling in Active Turbulence

Phys Rev Lett. 2025 Feb 28;134(8):088302. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.134.088302.

Abstract

Recent results suggest that highly active, chaotic, nonequilibrium states of living fluids might share much in common with high Reynolds number, inertial turbulence. We now show, by using a hydrodynamical model, the onset of intermittency and the consequent multiscaling of Eulerian and Lagrangian structure functions as a function of the bacterial activity. Our results bridge the worlds of low and high Reynolds number flows as well as open up intriguing possibilities of what makes flows intermittent.