%0 Journal Article
%T Velocity field distributions due to ideal line vortices
%A Thomas S. Levi
%A David C. Montgomery
%J Physics
%D 2001
%I arXiv
%R 10.1103/PhysRevE.63.056311
%X We evaluate numerically the velocity field distributions produced by a bounded, two-dimensional fluid model consisting of a collection of parallel ideal line vortices. We sample at many spatial points inside a rigid circular boundary. We focus on ``nearest neighbor'' contributions that result from vortices that fall (randomly) very close to the spatial points where the velocity is being sampled. We confirm that these events lead to a non-Gaussian high-velocity ``tail'' on an otherwise Gaussian distribution function for the Eulerian velocity field. We also investigate the behavior of distributions that do not have equilibrium mean-field probability distributions that are uniform inside the circle, but instead correspond to both higher and lower mean-field energies than those associated with the uniform vorticity distribution. We find substantial differences between these and the uniform case.
%U http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0102058v1