Palinstrophy Explained

Palinstrophy is the curl of the vorticity. It is defined as

(1)/(2) \left( \nabla x \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.
• Book: Turbulence: An Introduction for Scientists and Engineers. Davidson, P.A.. 2004. OUP Oxford. 9780191589850. 571. 2015-11-15.