Palinstrophy

Palinstrophy is the curl of the vorticity. It is defined as ${\frac {1}{2}}\left(\nabla \times \omega \right),$ where $\omega$ is the vorticity.

Palinstrophy is mainly used in turbulence study, where there is a need to quantify how vorticity is transferred from one direction to the others. It is closely related to enstrophy, the latter being more equivalent to the "power" of vorticity.

References

• Lesieur, Marcel. "Turbulence in fluids: stochastic and numerical modeling." NASA STI/Recon Technical Report A 91 (1990): 24106.
• Pouquet, A., et al. "Evolution of high Reynolds number two-dimensional turbulence." Journal of Fluid Mechanics 72 (1975): 305-319.
• Davidson, P.A. (2004). Turbulence: An Introduction for Scientists and Engineers. OUP Oxford. p. 571. ISBN 9780191589850. Retrieved 2015-11-15.