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# Cubic SUSY Interactions of Higher Spin Gauge Fields in 𝐴𝑑𝑆₅

Presented at the Third International Sakharov Conference on Physics,
Moscow, June 2002.

## Abstract

This contribution discusses the recent progress in research of consistent supersymmetric interactions of $`AdS_5`$ higher spin gauge fields.

The issue of consistent interactions between higher spin gauge fields is certainly not new one. Originated as the quest for an extension of ordinary supergravities, higher spin gauge theories are mainly motivated now by their possible relationship with a symmetric phase of a theory of fundamental interactions presently identified with M theory. However, in spite of the considerable progress in constructing higher spin gauge theories (for review see ) we are still missing some the basic ingredients. In particular, a non-trivial problem which remains unsolved is how to write down an action principle beyond the cubic order in interactions. Nonetheless, some essential features of any higher spin gauge theory such as an algebra of global higher spin symmetries and the crucial relevance of $`AdS`$ background may be revealed already within cubic theory presently available in $`d5`$.

In this contribution we review general construction of cubic supersymmetric interactions of totally symmetric bosonic and fermionic higher spin gauge fields propagating on $`AdS_5`$ background . The theory incorporates the previous results for purely bosonic interactions  and naturally extends to five dimensions the method for constructing cubic higher spin action originally developed in $`d=4`$ .

We begin with identifying the algebra of $`AdS_5`$ global higher spin symmetries. To this end, consider the associative Weyl-Clifford algebra with non-vanishing (anti)commutation generating relations ($`\alpha ,\beta =1÷4`$)

$$[a_\alpha ,b^\beta ]_{}=\delta _\alpha {}_{}{}^{\beta },\{\psi ,\overline{\psi }\}_{}=1,$$
(1)
with respect to Weyl star product. The generators

$$T_\alpha {}_{}{}^{\beta }=a_\alpha b^\beta ,Q_\alpha =a_\alpha \overline{\psi },\overline{Q}^\beta =b^\beta \psi ,U=\psi \overline{\psi }$$
(2)
close to the superalgebra $`gl(4|1;𝐂)`$ with respect to the graded Lie supercommutator. The set of generators (2) consists of $`gl(4;𝐂)`$ generators $`T`$, supersymmetry generators $`Q`$ and $`\overline{Q}`$ and $`u(1)`$ generator $`U`$. The central element in $`gl(4|1;𝐂)`$ is $`N=a_\alpha b^\alpha \psi \overline{\psi }`$. The supertraceless part of (2) defines the generators of $`sl(4|1;𝐂)`$, while the $`AdS_5`$ superalgebra $`su(2,2|1)`$ is a real form of $`sl(4|1;𝐂)`$ singled out by the appropriate reality conditions .

A natural higher spin extension of $`su(2,2|1)`$ introduced in  under the name $`shsc^{\mathrm{}}(4|1)`$ and called $`cu(1,1|8)`$ in  is associated with the star product algebra of all polynomials $`F(a,b,\psi ,\overline{\psi })`$ satisfying the condition

$$[N,F]_{}=0.$$
(3)
In other words, the $`5d`$ higher spin superalgebra $`cu(1,1|8)`$ is spanned by star-(anti)commutators of the elements of the centralizer of $`N`$ in the star product algebra (1). Note that $`Fcu(1,1|8)`$ is even in superoscillators.

The higher spin strength $`R(a,b,\psi ,\overline{\psi }|x)`$ associated with the higher spin connection $`\mathrm{\Omega }(a,b,\psi ,\overline{\psi }|x)`$ is

$$R=d\mathrm{\Omega }+\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{\Omega },d=dx^{\underset{¯}{n}}\frac{}{x^{\underset{¯}{n}}}.$$
(4)
Infinitesimal higher spin gauge transformations are

$$\delta \mathrm{\Omega }=Dϵ,\delta R=[R,ϵ]_{},$$
(5)
where 0-form $`ϵ=ϵ(a,b,\psi ,\overline{\psi }|x)`$ is an arbitrary infinitesimal higher spin gauge symmetry parameter and $`DF=dF+[\mathrm{\Omega },F]_{}.`$ To analyse interactions we use the perturbation expansion with the dynamical fields $`\mathrm{\Omega }_1`$ treated as fluctuations above the appropriately chosen background $`\mathrm{\Omega }_0`$: $`\mathrm{\Omega }=\mathrm{\Omega }_0+\mathrm{\Omega }_1`$, where the vacuum gauge fields $`\mathrm{\Omega }_0=\mathrm{\Omega }_{0\beta }^\alpha (x)a_\alpha b^\beta `$ correspond to background $`AdS_5`$ geometry described by virtue of the zero-curvature condition $`R(\mathrm{\Omega }_0)d\mathrm{\Omega }_0+\mathrm{\Omega }_0\mathrm{\Omega }_0=0`$ (for more details see ).

Under the gauging procedure the algebra $`cu(1,1|8)`$ yields the set of Lorentz higher spin fields which have different dynamical interpretation. In the gauge sector one distinguishes between physical, auxiliary and ”extra” type fields. The auxiliary and ”extra” fields carry the ghost-type degrees of freedom and, by virtue of appropriately chosen constraints , can be expressed in terms of the physical fields modulo pure gauge degrees of freedom. These constraints combined with the free higher spin equations of motion represent the First On-Mass-Shell Theorem which plays a key role in constructing consistent cubic interactions (see below).

The physical fields are arranged into an infinite sequence of supermultiplets of totally symmetric higher spin gauge fields $`\{s\}^{(k)},0k<\mathrm{}`$, with a spin content $`(s,s\frac{1}{2},s1)^{(k)}`$ determined by an integer highest spin $`s=2,3,\mathrm{},\mathrm{}`$. The infinite degeneracy associated with parameter $`k`$ is inherited from the fact that the corresponding higher spin connection $`\mathrm{\Omega }(a,b,\psi ,\overline{\psi }|x)`$ is not supertraceless and decomposes into an infinite series of supertraceless parts. Algebraically, the origin of this infinite degeneracy can be traced back to the fact that the algebra $`cu(1,1|8)`$ is not simple but contains infinitely many ideals generated by the central element $`N`$. One may consider quotient algebras and, in particular, one of the most interesting reduction provided by the algebra $`hu_0(1,1|8)=cu(1,1|8)/I_N`$, where $`I_N`$ is the ideal spanned by the elements $`NF=FN`$ .

Strictly speaking, the theory we consider is not fully supersymmetric because we truncate away all lower spin fields with $`s1`$ (in particular, the spin 1 field from the spin 2 supermultiplet). This truncation is done to simplify analysis because lower spin fields require special formulation while our goal is to check consistency of the higher-spin-gravitational interactions. By analogy with the $`4d`$ analysis (see second reference in ) it is not expected to be a hard problem to extend our analysis to the case with lower spin fields included. Note that a truncation of lower spin fields is only possible at the cubic level. This is because at the cubic level such an incomplete system remains formally consistent because one can switch out interactions among any three elementary (i.e., irreducible at the free field level) fields without spoiling the consistency at this order. This is a simple consequence of the Noether current interpretation of the cubic interactions: setting to zero some of the fields is always consistent with the conservation of currents. However, lower spin fields have necessarily to be introduced in the analysis of higher-order corrections.

In what follows we formulate the action for the $`AdS_5`$ massless boson and fermion gauge fields of $`cu(1,1|8)`$ that describes properly higher-spin-gravitational interactions of spin $`s3/2`$ fields in the first nontrivial order. The result extends the purely bosonic analysis ($`𝒩=0`$) of  to the $`𝒩=1`$ supersymmetric case.

An appropriate ansatz for the higher spin action is of the form:

$$𝒮(R,R)=\frac{1}{2}𝒜(R,R),$$
(6)
where the symmetric bilinear $`𝒜(F,G)=𝒜(G,F)`$ is defined for any 2-form higher spin curvatures (4) $`F`$ and $`G`$ in the adjoint of $`cu(1,1|8)`$

$$\begin{array}{c}F=F_{E_1}(a,b)+F_{O_1}(a,b)\psi +F_{O_2}(a,b)\overline{\psi }+F_{E_2}(a,b)\psi \overline{\psi },\hfill \\ G=G_{E_1}(a,b)+G_{O_1}(a,b)\psi +G_{O_2}(a,b)\overline{\psi }+G_{E_2}(a,b)\psi \overline{\psi }\hfill \end{array}$$
(7)
as

$$𝒜(F,G)=(F_E,G_E)+(F_O,G_O),$$
(8)
where

$$(F_E,G_E)^{}(F_{E_1},G_{E_1})+^{\prime \prime }(F_{E_2},G_{E_2}),$$
(9)
$$\begin{array}{c}^{}(F_{E_1},G_{E_1})=_^5\widehat{H}_{E1}\mathrm{tr}(F_{E_1}(a_1,b_1)G_{E_1}(a_2,b_2))|_{a_i=b_i=0},\\ ^{\prime \prime }(F_{E_2},G_{E_2})=_^5\widehat{H}_{E2}\mathrm{tr}(F_{E_2}(a_1,b_1)G_{E_2}(a_2,b_2))|_{a_i=b_i=0},\end{array}$$
(10)
$$\begin{array}{c}\hfill (F_O,G_O)=\frac{1}{2}_^5\widehat{H}_O\mathrm{tr}(G_{O_2}(a_1,b_1)F_{O_1}(a_2,b_2))|_{a_i=b_i=0}\\ \hfill +\frac{1}{2}_^5\widehat{H}_O\mathrm{tr}(F_{O_2}(a_1,b_1)G_{O_1}(a_2,b_2))|_{a_i=b_i=0}.\end{array}$$
(11)
1-forms $`\widehat{H}_{E1},\widehat{H}_{E2},\widehat{H}_O`$ are the following differential operators

$$\begin{array}{c}\widehat{H}_{E_i}=\alpha _i(p,q,t)E_{\alpha \beta }\frac{^2}{a_{1\alpha }a_{2\beta }}\widehat{b}_{12}+\beta _i(p,q,t)E^{\alpha \beta }\frac{^2}{b_1^\alpha b_2^\beta }\widehat{a}_{12}\\ +\gamma _i(p,q,t)(E_\alpha {}_{}{}^{\beta }\frac{^2}{a_{2\alpha }b_1^\beta }\widehat{c}_{21}E^\alpha {}_{\beta }{}^{}\frac{^2}{b_1^\alpha a_{2\beta }}\widehat{c}_{12}),i=1,2,\end{array}$$
(12)
$$\begin{array}{c}\widehat{H}_O=\alpha _3(p,q,t)E_{\alpha \beta }\frac{^2}{a_{1\alpha }a_{2\beta }}\widehat{b}_{12}\widehat{c}_{12}+\beta _3(p,q,t)E^{\alpha \beta }\frac{^2}{b_1^\alpha b_2^\beta }\widehat{a}_{12}\widehat{c}_{12}\\ +\gamma _3(p,q,t)E_\alpha {}_{}{}^{\beta }\frac{^2}{a_{1\alpha }b_2^\beta }.\end{array}$$
(13)
Here $`E^{\alpha \beta }=DV^{\alpha \beta }`$ is the frame field defined by virtue of the compensator $`V^{\alpha \beta }(x)=V^{\beta \alpha }(x):V^{\alpha \gamma }V_{\beta \gamma }=\delta _\beta ^\alpha `$ . The compensator is introduced to define the Lorentz subgroup in $`SU(2,2)`$ in a manifest $`AdS`$ covariant manner. The matrix $`V^{\alpha \beta }`$ is also used to rise and lower spinor indices . The coefficient functions $`\alpha (p,q,t),\beta (p,q,t),\gamma (p,q,t)`$, which parameterize various types of index contractions between two curvatures and the frame field in (10)-(11), depend on the operators:

$$p=\widehat{a}_{12}\widehat{b}_{12},q=\widehat{c}_{12}\widehat{c}_{21},t=\widehat{c}_{11}\widehat{c}_{22},$$
(14)
where

$$\begin{array}{ccc}\widehat{a}_{12}=V_{\alpha \beta }\frac{^2}{a_{1\alpha }a_{2\beta }},& \widehat{b}_{12}=V^{\alpha \beta }\frac{^2}{b_1^\alpha b_2^\beta },& \widehat{c}_{ij}=\frac{^2}{a_{i\alpha }b_j^\alpha }.\end{array}$$
(15)
Potentially, in our analysis the higher spin gauge fields are allowed to take values in some associative (e.g., matrix) algebra $`\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{\Omega }_I^J`$. The resulting ambiguity is equivalent to the ambiguity of a particular choice of the Yang-Mills gauge algebra in the spin 1 sector. The classification of the higher spin gauge theories associated with the different Yang-Mills algebras is given in . Therefore, the higher spin action (6) is formulated in terms of the trace $`tr`$ in this matrix algebra (to be not confused with the trace in the star product algebra). Note that the gravitational field is required to take values in the center of the matrix algebra, being proportional to the unit matrix. For this reason, the factors associated with the gravitational field are usually written outside the trace.

For general coefficient functions $`\alpha ,\beta ,\gamma `$, the quadratic part of the action (6) does not describe massless higher spin fields because of ghost-type degrees of freedom associated with extra fields. To eliminate these extra degrees of freedom one should fix the operators $`\widehat{H}`$ (12) and (13) in a specific way by requiring the variation of the quadratic action with respect to the extra fields to vanish identically . This condition is referred to as the extra field decoupling condition. Another restriction on the form of the action (6) comes from the requirement that its quadratic part should decompose into an infinite sum of free actions for different copies of fields of the same spin associated with the spinor traces. This factorization condition fixes a convenient basis in the space of fields rather than imposes true dynamical limitations on form of the action (in fact, this is the convenient diagonalization of the action). Also, we introduce the C-invariance condition  which states that the action (8) possesses the cyclic property with respect to the central element of the higher spin superalgebra:

$$𝒜(NF,G)=𝒜(F,GN).$$
(16)
Being imposed, the condition simplifies greatly the analysis of the dynamical system involving infinite sequences of supermultiplets of the same spin. We show that the extra field decoupling condition along with the factorization condition and the C-invariance condition fix the coefficient functions $`\alpha ,\beta ,\gamma `$ up to arbitrary functions parameterizing the ambiguity in the normalization coefficients in front of the individual free bosonic and fermionic actions . On the interacting level these functions are fixed unambiguously by the gauge invariance up to an overall factor in front of the action (6).

The analysis of the gauge invariance in the cubic order is essentially based on the statement called the First On-Mass-Shell Theorem . It states that most of linearized higher spin curvatures components are zero on mass-shell except for those corresponding to Weyl tensors $`C`$, i.e. (schematically)

$$R_1=hhC+X(\frac{\delta 𝒮_2}{\delta \mathrm{\Omega }}),$$
(17)
where $`h`$ stands for the background value of the frame field $`E`$ and $`X`$ are some linear functionals of the free equations of motion. The condition that the cubic higher spin action is invariant under some deformation of the higher spin gauge transformations is equivalent to the condition that the original (i.e. undeformed) higher spin gauge variation of the action is zero once the linearized higher spin curvatures $`R_1`$ are replaced by the Weyl tensors $`C`$. As a result, the problem is to find such functions $`\alpha ,\beta `$ and $`\gamma `$ that

$$\delta 𝒮(R,R)|_{E=h,R=hhC}𝒜_{\alpha ,\beta ,\gamma }^h(R,[R,ϵ]_{})|_{R=hhC}=0$$
(18)
for an arbitrary gauge parameter $`ϵ(a,b,\psi ,\overline{\psi }|x)`$. As to the terms in the variation which involve $`X`$-dependent parts of higher spin curvatures (17), these are exactly compensated by appropriate deformations of the abelian higher spin gauge transformations (5). These deformation corrections do not vanish on mass-shell. The non-trivial part of the variation is therefore reduced to the condition (18). It is crucial to stress that consideration of higher orders in interactions essentially requires curvature-dependent corrections (yet unknown) in (17) which can be disregarded in the cubic order.

Note that terms resulting from the gauge transformations of the gravitational fields and the compensator $`V^{\alpha \beta }`$ contribute into the factors in front of the higher spin curvatures in the action $`(\text{8})(\text{11})`$. The proof of the respective invariances is given in  and is based entirely on the explicit $`su(2,2)`$ covariance and invariance of the whole framework under diffeomorphisms. Also, one has to take into account that the higher spin gauge transformation of the gravitational fields is at least linear in the dynamical fields and therefore has to be discarded in the analysis of $`\mathrm{\Omega }^2ϵ`$ type terms under consideration.

As shown in , the condition (18) along with the extra field decoupling condition, the factorization condition and the C-invariance condition fix the coefficient functions in the form

$$\alpha _1(p,q,t)+\beta _1(p,q,t)=\mathrm{\Phi }_0\underset{m,n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{(1)^{m+n}(m+1)p^nq^m}{2^{2(m+n+1)}(m+n+2)!m!(n+1)!},$$
(19)
$$\gamma _1(p,q,t)=\gamma _1(p+q),\gamma _1(p)=\mathrm{\Phi }_0\underset{m=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{(1)^{m+1}p^m}{2^{2m+3}(m+2)!m!},$$
(20)
$$\alpha _2(p,q,t)+\beta _2(p,q,t)=\frac{1}{4}(\alpha _1(p,q,t)+\beta _1(p,q,t)),\gamma _2(p,q,t)=\frac{1}{4}\gamma _1(p,q,t),$$
(21)
$$\alpha _3(p,q,t)+\beta _3(p,q,t)=\mathrm{\Phi }_0\underset{m,n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{(1)^{m+n+1}p^mq^n}{2^{2(m+n)+3}(m+1)!(m+n+2)!n!},$$
(22)
$$\gamma _3(p,q,t)=\gamma _3(p+q),\gamma _3(p)=\mathrm{\Phi }_0\underset{m=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}(1)^{m+1}\frac{(1)^{m+1}p^m}{2^{2m+1}m!(m+1)!},$$
(23)
where $`\mathrm{\Phi }_0`$ is an arbitrary normalization factor to be identified with the (appropriately normalized in terms of the cosmological constant) gravitational coupling constant.

The consistent cubic interactions can also be constructed in the framework of the model exhibiting higher spin symmetries based on the algebra $`hu_0(1,1|8)`$ that results from factoring out the maximal ideal in $`cu(1,1|8)`$ . Elements of this algebra are spanned by the supertraceless multispinors. Thus the $`hu_0(1,1|8)`$ describes the system of higher spin fields with every supermultiplet emerging once. One can consider further reduction of $`cu(1,1|8)`$ and introduce the higher spin algebra $`ho_0(1,1|8)`$ along with its bosonic subalgebra $`ho_0(1,0|8)`$ studied in .

The consideration of the reduced model is based on the approach elaborated for the pure bosonic system in  which consists of inserting a sort of projection operator $``$ to the quotient algebra into the action (6). Namely, let $``$ satisfy $`N=N=0`$. Having specified the ”operator” $``$ we write the action for the reduced system associated with $`hu_0(1,1|8)`$ by replacing the bilinear form in the action with

$$𝒜(F,G)𝒜_0(F,G)=𝒜(F,G),$$
(24)
where $`𝒜(F,G)`$ corresponds to the action describing the original (unreduced) higher spin dynamics. From the C-invariance condition it follows $`𝒜(F,G)=𝒜(F,G)`$ provided that for any $`F,Gcu(1,1|8)`$ the operator $``$ satisfies $`F=F,G=G.`$ In fact, this implies that the operator $``$ should be a function of $`N`$. As a result, all terms proportional to $`N`$ do not contribute to the action (24) which therefore is defined on the quotient subalgebra. The representatives of the quotient algebra $`hu_0(1,1|8)`$ are identified with the elements $`F`$ satisfying the supertracelessness condition $`P^{}F=0.`$ We find the operator $``$ in the form

$$=\underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{N^{2n}}{n!(n+1)!}.$$
(25)
The modification of the action according to (24) does not contradict to the previous conclusions, where the action (6) was claimed to be fixed unambiguously, because in that analysis we have imposed the factorization condition in the particular basis of higher spin fields thus not allowing the transition to the invariant action (24). The factorization condition is relaxed here. All other conditions, namely the C-invariance condition, the extra field decoupling condition and the condition (18) remain valid.

It is not straightforward to incorporate an extended supersymmetry with $`𝒩`$ $`2`$ in the present construction of cubic higher spin couplings. This is because $`𝒩`$ $`2`$ supermultiplets originated from $`cu(2^{𝒩1},2^{𝒩1}|8)`$ require mixed-symmetry higher spin fields to be included . Two comments are in order. Firstly, the method employed in the present paper for constructing higher spin cubic couplings is essentially based on Lagrangian formulation of symmetric higher spin gauge fields in the form discovered in . Secondly, such Lagrangian description of mixed-symmetry massless gauge fields in $`AdS_d`$ with $`d5`$ is not elaborated yet. Let us note, that advantages of the approach of  are manifest higher gauge invariance of quadratic actions and the First On-Mass-Shell theorem which, on the cubic level, effectively determines true dynamical components of higher spin curvatures (Weyl tensors) thus solving the problem of ghost-type degrees of freedom. Moreover, the approach has manifest invariance under space-time diffeomorphisms.

To conclude, let us note that although we have proved the existence of particular higher-spin-gravitational couplings in the first order in interaction, there are many vital problems which remain unsolved. For instance, one of interesting question for further investigations is the study of the cubic couplings of particular higher spins in the form suitable for applications. Being rather non-trivial, this problem is important in context of higher spin $`AdS/CFT`$ correspondence. However, in the author’s humble opinion, only the knowledge of the higher spin action in the non-perturbative form will bring to light an adequate language to analyze the holography and the relationship with string theory and all the related topics.

Acknowledgments. The material presented here is based upon work done in collaboration with M.A. Vasiliev. This research was supported in part by RFBR Grants No 02-02-17067, No 02-02-16944 and the Landau Scholarship Foundation, Forschungszentrum Jülich.


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# Multifractal analysis of fluid particle accelerations in turbulence

## 1 Introduction

The multifractal analysis of turbulence  is a unified self-consistent approach for the systems with large deviations, which has been constructed based on the Tsallis-type distribution function  that provides an extremum of the extensive Rényi  or the non-extensive Tsallis entropy  under appropriate constraints. The analysis rests on the scale invariance of the Navier-Stokes equation for high Reynolds number, and on the assumptions that the singularities due to the invariance distribute themselves multifractally in physical space. The multifractal analysis belongs to the line of study based on a kind of ensemble theoretical approaches that, starting from K41 , continues with the log-normal model , the $`\beta `$-model , the p-model , the 3D binomial Cantor set model  and so on. After a rather preliminary investigation of the p-model , we developed further to derive the analytical expression for the scaling exponents of velocity structure function , and to determine the probability density function (PDF) of velocity fluctuations , of velocity derivative  and of fluid particle accelerations  by a self-consistent statistical mechanical approach. It has been shown  that the multifractal analysis derives the log-normal model  when one starts with the Boltzmann-Gibbs entropy.

In this paper, we derive the formula for the PDF of the accelerations of a fluid particle in fully developed turbulence by means of the multifractal analysis, and will analyze two experiments. One is the PDF of accelerations at $`R_\lambda =690`$ of the Taylor microscale Reynolds number obtained in the Lagrangian measurement of particle accelerations that was realized by Bodenschatz et al.  by raising dramatically the spatial and temporal measurement resolutions with the help of the silicon strip detectors. The other is the PDF of accelerations at $`R_\lambda =380`$  that was extracted by Gotoh from the DNS of the size 10243  which may be the largest mesh size available at present.

For high Reynolds number $`\mathrm{Re}1`$, or for the situation where effects of the kinematic viscosity $`\nu `$ can be neglected compared with those of the turbulent viscosity, the Navier-Stokes equation,

$$\stackrel{}{u}/t+(\stackrel{}{u}\stackrel{}{})\stackrel{}{u}=\stackrel{}{}\left(p/\rho \right)+\nu ^2\stackrel{}{u},$$
(1)
of an incompressible fluid is invariant under the scale transformation

$$\stackrel{}{r}\lambda \stackrel{}{r},\stackrel{}{u}\lambda ^{\alpha /3}\stackrel{}{u},t\lambda ^{1\alpha /3}t,\left(p/\rho \right)\lambda ^{2\alpha /3}\left(p/\rho \right)$$
(2)
where the exponent $`\alpha `$ is an arbitrary real quantity. The quantities $`\rho `$ and $`p`$ represent, respectively, mass density and pressure. The acceleration $`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{a}}`$ of a fluid particle is given by the substantive time derivative of the velocity:

$$\stackrel{}{\mathrm{a}}=\stackrel{}{u}/t+(\stackrel{}{u}\stackrel{}{})\stackrel{}{u}.$$
(3)
The Reynolds number $`\mathrm{Re}`$ of the system is given by

$$\mathrm{Re}=\delta u_{\mathrm{in}}\mathrm{}_{\mathrm{in}}/\nu =(\mathrm{}_{\mathrm{in}}/\eta )^{4/3}$$
(4)
with the Kolmogorov scale $`\eta =(\nu ^3/ϵ)^{1/4}`$  where $`ϵ`$ is the energy input rate at the energy-input scale $`\mathrm{}_{\mathrm{in}}`$. The velocity fluctuation $`\delta u_{\mathrm{in}}`$ is defined by putting $`\mathrm{}_n=\mathrm{}_{\mathrm{in}}`$ in $`\delta u_n=|u(+\mathrm{}_n)u()|`$ where $`u`$ is a component of velocity field $`\stackrel{}{u}`$, and $`\mathrm{}_n`$ is a distance between two observing points. We are measuring distance by the discrete units

$$\mathrm{}_n=\delta _n\mathrm{}_0$$
(5)
with $`\delta _n=2^n`$ $`(n=0,1,2,\mathrm{})`$ and $`\mathrm{}_0`$ being some reference length. The non-negative integer $`n`$ represents the multifractal depth. However, we will treat it as positive real number in the analysis of experiments.

It may be worthwhile to note here that, within the energy cascade model, the diameter $`\mathrm{}_{\overline{n}}`$ of eddies should be defined by

$$\mathrm{}_{\overline{n}}=\delta _{\overline{n}}\mathrm{}_{\mathrm{in}}.$$
(6)
Therefore, if one identifies the distance $`\mathrm{}_n`$ with the diameter $`\mathrm{}_{\overline{n}}`$ of the $`\overline{n}`$th eddies within the energy cascade model, one has the relation

$$\overline{n}=n\mathrm{log}_2\left(\mathrm{}_0/\mathrm{}_{\mathrm{in}}\right)$$
(7)
between the number $`n`$ of the multifractal steps and the number $`\overline{n}`$ of the steps within the energy cascade. We see that $`\mathrm{}_{\mathrm{in}}=\mathrm{}_{\overline{0}}`$ as it should be.

Introducing the pressure (divided by the mass density) difference

$$\delta p_n=|p/\rho (+\mathrm{}_n)p/\rho ()|$$
(8)
between two points separated by the distance $`\mathrm{}_n`$, the accelerations may be estimated by

$$|\stackrel{}{\mathrm{a}}|=\underset{n\mathrm{}}{lim}\mathrm{a}_n$$
(9)
where we introduced the acceleration

$$\mathrm{a}_n=\delta p_n/\mathrm{}_n$$
(10)
belonging to the multifractal depth $`n`$. The acceleration becomes singular for $`\alpha <1.5`$, i.e.,

$$\underset{n\mathrm{}}{lim}\mathrm{a}_n=\underset{\mathrm{}_n0}{lim}\delta p_n/\mathrm{}_n\underset{\mathrm{}_n0}{lim}\mathrm{}_n^{(2\alpha /3)1}\mathrm{}$$
(11)
which can be seen with the relation

$$\delta p_n/\delta p_0=(\mathrm{}_n/\mathrm{}_0)^{2\alpha /3}.$$
(12)
The values of exponent $`\alpha `$ specify the degree of singularity.

## 2 Multifractal spectrum

The multifractal analysis rests on the multifractal distribution of $`\alpha `$. The probability $`P^{(n)}(\alpha )d\alpha `$ to find, at a point in physical space, a singularity labeled by an exponent in the range $`\alpha \alpha +d\alpha `$ is given by

$$P^{(n)}(\alpha )=Z_\alpha ^{(n)1}\left[1(\alpha \alpha _0)^2/(\Delta \alpha )^2\right]^{n/(1q)}$$
(13)
with an appropriate partition function $`Z_\alpha ^{(n)}`$ and

$$(\Delta \alpha )^2=2X/[(1q)\mathrm{ln}2].$$
(14)
The range of $`\alpha `$ is $`\alpha _{\mathrm{min}}\alpha \alpha _{\mathrm{max}}`$ with

$$\alpha _{\mathrm{min}}=\alpha _0\Delta \alpha ,\alpha _{\mathrm{max}}=\alpha _0+\Delta \alpha .$$
(15)
It may be worthwhile to put here its brief derivation in order to make the paper self-contained. The distribution function (13) is derived by taking an extremum of the generalized entropy, the Rényi entropy

$$S_q^\mathrm{R}[P^{(1)}(\alpha )]=\left(1q\right)^1\mathrm{ln}𝑑\alpha P^{(1)}(\alpha )^q$$
(16)
or the Tsallis entropy

$$S_q^\mathrm{T}[P^{(1)}(\alpha )]=\left(1q\right)^1\left(𝑑\alpha P^{(1)}(\alpha )^q1\right),$$
(17)
under the two constraints, i.e., the normalization of distribution function:

$$𝑑\alpha P^{(1)}(\alpha )=\text{const.},$$
(18)
and the $`q`$-variance being kept constant as a known quantity:

$$\sigma _q^2=\left(𝑑\alpha P^{(1)}(\alpha )^q(\alpha \alpha _0)^2\right)/𝑑\alpha P^{(1)}(\alpha )^q.$$
(19)
Here, we assume that the distribution function at the $`n`$th multifractal depth has the structure

$$P^{(n)}(\alpha )[P^{(1)}(\alpha )]^n.$$
(20)
This is consistent with the relation

$$P^{(n)}(\alpha )\delta _n^{1f(\alpha )}$$
(21)
that is a manifestation of scale invariance and reveals how densely each singularity, labeled by $`\alpha `$, fills physical space. In the present model, the multifractal spectrum $`f(\alpha )`$ is given by

$$f(\alpha )=1+(1q)^1\mathrm{log}_2[1(\alpha \alpha _0)^2/(\mathrm{\Delta }\alpha )^2].$$
(22)
In spite of the different characteristics of these entropies, i.e., extensive and non-extensive, the distribution functions giving their extremum have the common structure (13).111 Within the present formulation, the decision cannot be pronounced which of the entropies is underlying the system of turbulence.

The dependence of the parameters $`\alpha _0`$, $`X`$ and $`q`$ on the intermittency exponent $`\mu `$ is determined, self-consistently, with the help of the three independent equations, i.e., the energy conservation:

$$ϵ_n=ϵ,$$
(23)
the definition of the intermittency exponent $`\mu `$:

$$ϵ_n^2=ϵ^2\delta _n^\mu ,$$
(24)
and the scaling relation222 The scaling relation is a generalization of the one derived first in  to the case where the multifractal spectrum has negative values. :

$$1/(1q)=1/\alpha _{}1/\alpha _+$$
(25)
with $`\alpha _\pm `$ satisfying $`f(\alpha _\pm )=0`$. The average $`\mathrm{}`$ is taken with $`P^{(n)}(\alpha )`$. The energy-transfer rate $`ϵ_n`$ represents the rate of transfer of energy per unit mass from eddies of size $`\mathrm{}_n=\mathrm{}_{\overline{n}}`$ (the $`\overline{n}`$th step within the energy cascade model) to those of size $`\mathrm{}_{n+1}=\mathrm{}_{\overline{n+1}}`$ (the $`\overline{n+1}`$th step within the energy cascade model). It should be noted that the average $`ϵ_n`$ is taken just for the eddies having the size $`\mathrm{}_n`$. It is not the average within the spatial region of the diameter $`\mathrm{}_n`$.

For the region $`0.13\mu 0.40`$ where the value of $`\mu `$ is usually observed, the three self-consistent equations are solved to give the approximate equations :

$$\alpha _0=0.9989+0.5814\mu ,X=2.848\times 10^3+1.198\mu $$
(26)
$$q=1.507+20.58\mu 97.11\mu ^2+260.4\mu ^3365.4\mu ^4+208.3\mu ^5.$$
(27)
## 3 Scaling exponent of velocity structure function

Let us derive first the probability $`\mathrm{\Lambda }^{(n)}(y_n)dy_n`$ to find the scaled pressure fluctuations

$$|y_n|=\delta p_n/\delta p_0$$
(28)
in the range $`y_ny_n+dy_n`$ in the form

$$\mathrm{\Lambda }^{(n)}(y_n)dy_n=\mathrm{\Lambda }_\mathrm{S}^{(n)}(y_n)dy_n+\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Lambda }^{(n)}(y_n)dy_n$$
(29)
with the normalization

$$_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}𝑑y_n\mathrm{\Lambda }^{(n)}(y_n)=1.$$
(30)
Here, we assumed that it has two contributions whose origins are independent with each other. The first term represents the contribution by the singular part of accelerations stemmed from the multifractal distribution of the singularities in physical space. This is given by

$$\mathrm{\Lambda }_\mathrm{S}^{(n)}(|y_n|)dy_nP^{(n)}(\alpha )d\alpha $$
(31)
with the transformation of the variables, $`|y_n|=\delta _n^{2\alpha /3}`$. Whereas the second term $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Lambda }^{(n)}(y_n)dy_n`$ represents the contribution from the dissipative term in the Navier-Stokes equation, and/or the one from the errors in measurements. The dissipative term has been discarded in the above investigation since it violates the invariance under the scale transformation. The contribution of the second term provides a correction to the first one. Note that the proportionality coefficient in (31) determines the portion of the contribution among these two independent origins.333 Needless to say that each term in (29) is a multiple of two PDFs, i.e., the PDF for one of the two independent origins to realize and the conditional PDF for a value $`y_n`$ in the range $`y_ny_n+dy_n`$ to come out. This is of course in a generalized sense in which the second correction term may weaken the first singular contribution.

The $`m`$th moments of the pressure fluctuations, $`|y_n|^m`$, are given by

$$|y_n|^m_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}𝑑y_n|y_n|^m\mathrm{\Lambda }^{(n)}(y_n)=2\stackrel{~}{\gamma }_m^{(n)}+(12\stackrel{~}{\gamma }_0^{(n)})a_{2m}\delta _n^{\zeta _{2m}}$$
(32)
where

$$2\stackrel{~}{\gamma }_m^{(n)}=_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}𝑑y_n|y_n|^m\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Lambda }^{(n)}(y_n)$$
(33)
$$a_{3\overline{q}}=\{2/[\sqrt{C_{\overline{q}}}(1+\sqrt{C_{\overline{q}}})]\}^{1/2}$$
(34)
with

$$C_{\overline{q}}=1+2\overline{q}^2(1q)X\mathrm{ln}2.$$
(35)
The quantity

$$\zeta _m=\alpha _0m/32Xm^2/[9(1+C_{m/3}^{1/2})][1\mathrm{log}_2(1+C_{m/3}^{1/2})]/(1q)$$
(36)
is the scaling exponent of the mth order velocity structure function which explains successfully the experimental results . Note that the formula is independent of $`n`$.

## 4 PDF of the fluid particle accelerations

We now derive the PDF, $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Lambda }}^{(n)}(\omega _n)`$, defined by the relation

$$\widehat{\mathrm{\Lambda }}^{(n)}(\omega _n)d\omega _n=\mathrm{\Lambda }^{(n)}(y_n)dy_n$$
(37)
with the acceleration $`\omega _n`$ normalized by its deviation, i.e.,

$$|\omega _n|=\mathrm{a}_n/\mathrm{a}_n^2^{1/2}=\delta p_n/\delta p_n^2^{1/2}=y_n/y_n^2^{1/2}=\overline{\omega }_n\delta _n^{2\alpha /3\zeta _4/2}$$
(38)
with

$$\overline{\omega }_n=[2\stackrel{~}{\gamma }_2^{(n)}\delta _n^{\zeta _4}+(12\stackrel{~}{\gamma }_0^{(n)})a_4]^{1/2}.$$
(39)
It is reasonable to imagine that the origin of intermittent rare events is attributed to the singular term in (29). We then have, for the tail part $`\omega _n^{}|\omega _n|\omega _n^{\mathrm{max}}`$,

$`\widehat{\mathrm{\Lambda }}^{(n)}(\omega _n)d\omega _n`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_\mathrm{S}^{(n)}(y_n)dy_n`$ (40)
$`=`$ $`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}_\mathrm{S}^{(n)}{\displaystyle \frac{\overline{\omega }_n}{|\omega _n|}}\left[1{\displaystyle \frac{1q}{n}}{\displaystyle \frac{\left(3\mathrm{ln}|\omega _n/\omega _{n,0}|\right)^2}{8X|\mathrm{ln}\delta _n|}}\right]^{n/(1q)}d\omega _n`$
with

$$\omega _{n,0}=\overline{\omega }_n\delta _n^{2\alpha _0/3\zeta _4/2},\omega _n^{\mathrm{max}}=\overline{\omega }_n\delta _n^{2\alpha _{\mathrm{min}}/3\zeta _4/2}$$
(41)
and

$$\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}_\mathrm{S}^{(n)}=3\left(12\stackrel{~}{\gamma }_0^{(n)}\right)/\left(4\overline{\omega }_n\sqrt{2\pi X|\mathrm{ln}\delta _n|}\right).$$
(42)
On the other hand, for smaller accelerations, the contribution to the PDF comes from both the singularity and thermal fluctuations or measurement error. We assume that this part of the PDF is described by Tsallis-type function with a new parameter $`q^{}`$, i.e., for the center part $`|\omega _n|\omega _n^{}`$,

$`\widehat{\mathrm{\Lambda }}^{(n)}(\omega _n)d\omega _n=\left[\widehat{\mathrm{\Lambda }}_\mathrm{S}^{(n)}(y_n)+\mathrm{\Delta }\widehat{\mathrm{\Lambda }}^{(n)}(y_n)\right]dy_n`$ (43)
$`=`$ $`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}_\mathrm{S}^{(n)}\left\{1{\displaystyle \frac{1q^{}}{2}}\left[1+{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}}f^{}(\alpha ^{})\right]\left[\left({\displaystyle \frac{\omega _n}{\omega _n^{}}}\right)^21\right]\right\}^{1/(1q^{})}d\omega _n.`$
This specific form of the Tsallis function is determined by the condition that the two PDFs (40) and (43) should have the same value and the same slope at $`\omega _n^{}`$ which is defined by

$$\omega _n^{}=\overline{\omega }_n\delta _n^{2\alpha ^{}/3\zeta _4/2}$$
(44)
with $`\alpha ^{}`$ being the smaller solution of

$$\zeta _4/22\alpha /3+1f(\alpha )=0.$$
(45)
It is the point at which $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Lambda }}^{(n)}(\omega _n^{})`$ has the least $`n`$-dependence for large $`n`$.

With the help of the relation (43), we obtain $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Lambda }^{(n)}(y_n)`$, and have the formula to evaluate $`\stackrel{~}{\gamma }_m^{(n)}`$ in the form

$$2\stackrel{~}{\gamma }_m^{(n)}=\left(K_m^{(n)}L_m^{(n)}\right)/\left(1+K_0^{(n)}L_0^{(n)}\right)$$
(46)
where

$`K_m^{(n)}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{3\delta _n^{2(m+1)\alpha ^{}/3\zeta _4/2}}{2\sqrt{2\pi X|\mathrm{ln}\delta _n|}}}{\displaystyle _0^1}𝑑zz^m`$ (47)
$`\times \left[1{\displaystyle \frac{1q^{}}{2}}\left[1+{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}}f^{}(\alpha ^{})\right]\left(z^21\right)\right]^{1/(1q^{})},`$
$`L_m^{(n)}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{3\delta _n^{2m\alpha ^{}/3}}{2\sqrt{2\pi X|\mathrm{ln}\delta _n|}}}{\displaystyle _{z_{\mathrm{min}}}^1}𝑑zz^{m1}\left[1{\displaystyle \frac{1q}{n}}{\displaystyle \frac{\left(3\mathrm{ln}|z/z_0^{}|\right)^2}{8X|\mathrm{ln}\delta _n|}}\right]^{n/(1q)}`$ (48)
with

$$z_{\mathrm{min}}=\omega _{\mathrm{min}}/\omega _n^{}=\delta _n^{2(\alpha _{\mathrm{max}}\alpha ^{})/3},z_0^{}=\omega _{n,0}/\omega _n^{}=\delta _n^{2(\alpha _0\alpha ^{})/3}.$$
(49)
Now, the PDF of fluid particle accelerations, given by (40) and (43), is completely determined by three parameters, i.e., the intermittency exponent $`\mu `$, the multifractal depth $`n`$ which gives a characteristic length $`\mathrm{}_n`$, and $`q^{}`$ which appears in the Tsallis-type PDF at the center part. The intermittency exponent $`\mu `$ is determined by analyzing the measured scaling exponent $`\zeta _m`$ of the velocity structure function with the formula (36) as mentioned before.

As for the determination of the value $`n`$, the flatness of the PDF of fluid particle accelerations can be a good candidate . Actually, the present multifractal analysis provides us with the analytical formula for the flatness of the PDF in the form

$`F_\mathrm{a}^{(n)}`$ $``$ $`\mathrm{a}_n^4/\mathrm{a}_n^2^2=\omega _n^4={\displaystyle \frac{2\stackrel{~}{\gamma }_4^{(n)}+(12\stackrel{~}{\gamma }_0^{(n)})a_8\delta _n^{\zeta _8}}{\left[2\stackrel{~}{\gamma }_2^{(n)}+(12\stackrel{~}{\gamma }_0^{(n)})a_4\delta _n^{\zeta _4}\right]^2}}`$ (50)
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{a_8}{(12\stackrel{~}{\gamma }_0^{(n)})a_4^2}}\delta _n^{\zeta _82\zeta _4}.`$ (51)
With this formula, the experimental value of the flatness $`F_\mathrm{a}^{(n)}`$ gives the value of the multifractal step $`n`$. In deriving the approximate formula (51), we used the fact that the first terms both in the denominator and numerator of the last formula in (50) are two or three orders in magnitude smaller than the second terms. Note that the contribution to the flatness is mainly come from the tail part of the PDF, and that there is almost no contribution from its center part (see Fig. 4 below). Therefore, at this stage, we can determine almost the final shape and the magnitude of the tail part given by (40). It means that the shape of the center part, which is controlled by $`q^{}`$, rarely affect the tail part, and that the contribution of the center part to the normalization of PDF is almost independent of $`q^{}`$. The $`n`$-dependence of the flatness is given in Fig. 1 both for the cases corresponding to the experiments conducted by Bodenschatz et al. with the approximate formula

$`F_\mathrm{a}^{(n)}`$ $`=`$ $`6.872+5.216n9.969\times 10^1n^2`$ (52)
$`+1.075\times 10^1n^35.296\times 10^3n^4+1.241\times 10^4n^5,`$
and to the DNS performed by Gotoh et al. with

$`F_\mathrm{a}^{(n)}`$ $`=`$ $`7.592+5.831n1.114n^2`$ (53)
$`+1.203\times 10^1n^35.925\times 10^3n^4+1.389\times 10^4n^5.`$
The slight difference between the two formulae comes from the difference of the values $`q^{}`$ (see Fig. 2 and Fig. 3 below).

Within the present stage of the multifractal analysis, the value $`q^{}`$ is determined by adjusting the center part with the experimental data. However, since the center part of the PDF takes care only smaller accelerations compared with its deviation, we can expect that the dynamical analysis such as done by Beck  may be effective. The dynamical study for the center part will be reported elsewhere in connection with the multifractal characteristics of the system which determines the tail part representing large deviations.

## 5 Analysis of experiments

We analyze, with the formula (40) and (43), the experimental PDF at $`R_\lambda =690`$ measured by Bodenschatz et al.  in Fig. 2 on (a) log and (b) linear scale. We determined the value $`n=17.1`$ for this experiment by substituting into its definition (5), i.e., $`n=\mathrm{log}_2(\mathrm{}_0/\mathrm{}_n)`$, the reported value of the integral length scale 0.071 m for $`\mathrm{}_0`$, and of the spatial measurement resolution 0.5 $`\mu `$m for $`\mathrm{}_n`$ . The intermittency exponent $`\mu =0.240`$ is extracted by the method of least squares with respect to the logarithm of PDFs as the best fit of our theoretical formulae with $`n=17.1`$ to the observed values of the PDF . We discarded those points whose PDF values are less than $`10^7`$ since they scatter largely on log scale. Substituting the extracted value of $`\mu `$ into the self-consistent equations, we have the values of parameters: $`q=0.391`$, $`\alpha _0=1.138`$ and $`X=0.285`$. With these values, other quantities are determined, e.g., $`\Delta \alpha =1.161`$, $`\alpha _+\alpha _0=\alpha _0\alpha _{}=0.6815`$, $`\alpha ^{}=1.005`$, $`\omega _n^{}=0.605`$ and $`\omega _n^{\mathrm{max}}=2040`$. The best fit at the center part is given with $`q^{}=1.45`$.444 It is remarkable that this value of $`q^{}`$ is close to $`q^{}=1.5`$ proposed by Beck , although it is claimed that his formula does not provide a good explanation of experimental PDF for larger accelerations .  The flatness of the PDF of accelerations has the value $`F_\mathrm{a}^{(n)}=56.9`$ which is within the reported value of the flatness $`55\pm 4`$ . This results tells us that the formula (50) of the flatness can be used to derive the value of $`\mu `$, accurately, when one knows the value of $`n`$, and vice versa (see Fig. 1 and also Fig. 4 below).

Analysis of the PDF of accelerations extracted out from the DNS data obtained by Gotoh et al.  at $`R_\lambda =380`$ is shown in Fig. 3 on (a) log and (b) linear scale. The value $`\mu =0.240`$ for this DNS has been determined by the analysis of the experimental scaling exponent $`\zeta _m`$ of longitudinal velocity structure function with our theoretical formula (36) . Substituting this value of $`\mu `$ into the self-consistent equations, we have the values of parameters: $`q=0.391`$, $`\alpha _0=1.138`$, $`X=0.285`$, $`\Delta \alpha =1.161`$ and $`\alpha _+\alpha _0=\alpha _0\alpha _{}=0.6815`$ which are the same as those derived in the analysis of the experiment by Bodenschatz, since both systems have a common value $`\mu =0.240`$ for the intermittency exponent. The value $`n=17.5`$ is extracted by the method of least squares with respect to the logarithm of PDFs as the best fit of our theoretical formulae with the derived parameters given above to the observed data of the PDF . Note that $`\alpha ^{}=1.005`$, $`\omega _n^{}=0.622`$ and $`\omega _n^{\mathrm{max}}=2534`$. The best fit at the center part is given with $`q^{}=1.7`$. The flatness of the PDF is $`F_\mathrm{a}^{(n)}=70.0`$. The characteristic distance $`r=\mathrm{}_n`$ for $`n=17.5`$ reduces to $`r/\eta =7.91`$ with $`\eta 0.258\times 10^2`$ , which is about three times longer than the length $`\mathrm{\Delta }r/\eta =2\pi /(1024\eta )=2.38`$ of the mesh of Gotoh’s DNS. In deriving the characteristic distance, we used the second formula in555 The empirical formulae (54) and (55) were extracted through the multifractal analysis for the PDFs of velocity fluctuations measured at two points separated by $`r`$ . The corresponding numbers $`n`$ and $`\overline{n}`$ are given by ($`r/\eta `$, $`n`$, $`\overline{n}`$) = (2.38, 21.5, 14.5), (4.76, 20.0, 13.0), (9.52, 16.8, 9.81), (19.0, 14.0, 7.01), (38.1, 11.8, 4.81), (76.2, 10.1, 3.11), (152, 9.30, 2.31), (305, 8.10, 1.11), (609, 7.00, 0.01), (1220, 6.00, -0.99). It seems that there are two scaling regions constituting the inertial range. The formula (55) indicates that in the lower scaling region ($`r<\mathrm{}_\mathrm{c}`$) eddies break up, effectively, into 1.33 pieces in contrast to the upper scaling region ($`\mathrm{}_\mathrm{c}r`$) where eddies break up into two pieces as seen in (54) . The existence of the two scaling regions can be an artifact of DNS due to a shortage of calculation time, since energy cascading process is not so effective for eddies whose sizes are smaller than $`\mathrm{}_\mathrm{c}`$ or the Taylor microscale. Note that Gotoh et al. claimed that the inertial range is restricted only to the region around $`\overline{n}=`$ 3.11, 2.31 and 1.11 .

$`n`$ $`=`$ $`1.050\mathrm{log}_2(r/\eta )+16.74(\mathrm{}_\mathrm{c}r)`$ (54)
$`n`$ $`=`$ $`2.540\mathrm{log}_2(r/\eta )+25.08(r<\mathrm{}_\mathrm{c}).`$ (55)
Here, $`\mathrm{}_\mathrm{c}/\eta =48.26`$ is the crossover length of two scaling regions, and is close to the Taylor microscale $`\lambda /\eta =38.33`$. With the help of the formula (7), we have $`\overline{n}=11.8`$.

In Fig. 4, we put the lines representing the integrand $`\omega _n^4\widehat{\mathrm{\Lambda }}^{(n)}(\omega _n)`$ of the flatness $`F_\mathrm{a}^{(n)}`$ and the corresponding experimental data (a) by Bodenschatz et al. , and (b) by Gotoh et al. . The agreements are remarkable.

## 6 Comment on the energy-input scale

There is no room to incorporate, automatically, into the present multifractal analysis the energy input scale $`\mathrm{}_{\mathrm{in}}`$ and the ”system size” $`\mathrm{}_0`$. The former is necessary to determine the number of steps $`\overline{n}`$ in the energy cascade model. Once $`\mathrm{}_{\mathrm{in}}`$ is determined by investigating the structure of experimental apparatuses, the relation between $`\overline{n}`$ and the multifractal step $`n`$ is given by (7). Since main part of the multifractal analysis rests on the scale invariance, the size of the system under consideration is assumed to be infinite, and therefore, the value of the reference length $`\mathrm{}_0`$ introduced in (5) is determined only through the analysis of experimental data.

Actually, for example, the empirical equation

$$n=1.019\mathrm{log}_2r/\eta +0.901\mathrm{log}_2\mathrm{Re}$$
(56)
extracted from the experimental PDFs for velocity fluctuations666 The velocity fluctuations are measured at two separated points whose distance is $`r`$. The corresponding numbers $`n`$ and $`\overline{n}`$ are given by  ($`r/\eta `$, $`n`$, $`\overline{n}`$) = (11.6, 14, 10.7), (23.1, 13, 9.7), (46.2, 11, 8.7), (92.5, 10, 7.7), (208, 9.0, 6.6), (399, 8.0, 5.6), (830, 7.5, 4.6), (1440, 7.0, 3.8). The relation (56) is extracted with these values .  by Lewis and Swinney  gives $`\mathrm{}_0877\text{ cm}`$. In their analysis, the Reynolds number $`\mathrm{Re}=\mathrm{540\; 000}`$ is estimated with $`\mathrm{}_{\mathrm{in}}=2\pi \times 19.00\text{ cm}119.32\text{ cm}`$ and the Kolmogorov scale $`\eta 0.006\text{ cm}`$. Therefore, the reference length is large compared with the energy-input scale.

For Gotoh’s DNS, the empirical equation (54), extracted by the analysis of PDFs of velocity fluctuations, gives $`\mathrm{}_0/\eta \mathrm{63\; 000}`$ which is larger than the energy-input scale $`\mathrm{}_{\mathrm{in}}/\eta =\pi /(k\eta )497`$ with the wavenumber $`k=6^{1/2}`$ of forcing where we took 209 grid point spacings for the measure of the energy-input scale . We see again that the reference length is longer than the energy-input scale. The Reynolds number of the DNS is now estimated by (4) as $`\mathrm{Re}=\mathrm{3\; 937}`$. A unified study of Gotoh’s DNS  by means of the multifractal analysis with the Tsallis-type PDF for the center part will be given elsewhere, in which it is shown that the PDFs for the velocity fluctuations, for the velocity derivatives and for the fluid particle accelerations in addition to the scale exponents of velocity structure function provide us with consistent results.

In the analysis of Bodenschatz’s experiment, the identification of $`\mathrm{}_0`$ with the integral length scale 7.1 cm gives us reasonable value of $`n=17.1`$ in the sense that with this value the formula (50) of the flatness provides us with $`\mu =0.240`$ for the intermittency exponent. This value turns out to be the same as the one observed by Gotoh et al. in their DNS. Since Bodenschatz assigned $`\mathrm{Re}=\mathrm{31\; 400}`$ with the formula (4), $`\eta =30.3`$ $`\mu `$m gives $`\mathrm{}_{\mathrm{in}}=0.071`$ m, as it should be. Therefore, in this case, we see that the energy-input scale is equal to the integral length scale, i.e., $`\mathrm{}_{\mathrm{in}}=\mathrm{}_0`$, and that $`\overline{n}=n=17.1`$.

## 7 Discussions

A comparison of the PDFs of accelerations are put in Fig. 5 on (a) log and (b) linear scale. The thin and the thick lines are those theoretical PDFs in Fig. 2 and in Fig. 3, respectively. The analysis of the data by Bodenschatz for the accelerations in terms of the log-normal model was performed just the same way as the multifractal analysis to get $`\mu =0.260`$ and $`n=15.5`$. The resulting PDF is given by dashed line which deviates slightly upward for larger values of $`\omega _n`$ compared with the thin line. This deviation can be understood from the scaling exponents $`\zeta _m`$ of the velocity structure function within the log-normal model. It becomes negative for larger values of $`m`$. The dotted line is the empirical PDF given by Bodenschatz et al.  which deviate downward for larger values of $`\omega _n`$. The dotted-dashed line is the PDF given by Beck  for the studies both of the PDFs by Bodenschatz et al. and of Gotoh et al.. The lines other than the present theoretical PDFs in Fig. 5 give rather poor explanations at the center part.777 Beck introduced a somewhat artificial cutoff in his formula in order to fix its defect at the center part of the PDF .

From the above analyses of two experiments, we reveal that there are two mechanisms contributing to the PDF of the accelerations, i.e., one is for the tail part, and the other for the center part. The structure of the PDF $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Lambda }}^{(n)}(\omega _n)`$ for the tail part, $`\omega _n^{}|\omega _n|`$, is given by (40) that represents the intermittent large deviations which is a manifestation of the multifractal distribution of singularities in physical space due to the scale invariance of the Navier-Stokes equation for large Reynolds number. The experiment conducted by Bodenschatz et al.  visualized the singularities in physical space by tracing the ”fluid particle” in turbulence. The specific form (40) comes from the distribution function for the singularity exponent $`\alpha `$ that is represented by the Tsallis-type distribution function (13) with the parameter $`q`$ which is determined by the observed value of the intermittency exponent. The flatness of the PDF mainly provides us with the information of this tail part. The structure of the PDF for the center part, $`|\omega _n|\omega _n^{}`$, is given by (43) that represents small deviations violating the scale invariance due to thermal fluctuations and/or observation error. The PDF for this part is assumed to be given by the Tsallis-type distribution function for acceleration itself with the parameter $`q^{}`$. In this paper, the value of $`q^{}`$ are determined with the help of the experimentally observed PDF at the center part, giving $`q^{}=1.45`$ and $`q^{}=1.7`$ which is close to 1.5 proposed by Beck . The value of $`q^{}`$ should be determined by investigating the dynamics of thermal fluctuations and/or observation error on the multifractal support, which may have non-additive character. This is one of the attractive future problems. Note that we already saw a dependence of $`\mathrm{ln}(1/(q^{}1))`$ on $`\mathrm{ln}(r/\eta )`$ through the study of the PDFs of velocity fluctuations, a detailed of which will be reported elsewhere. The tail part and the center part are separated at $`\omega _n^{}0.6`$. This gives $`\alpha ^{}1`$ that satisfies the condition $`\alpha <1.5`$ in which the singularity appears in fluid particle accelerations.

We saw that the PDFs derived within the multifractal analysis seem to be sensitive to the characteristic lengths such as the distance of two measuring points, the space resolution in measurement and the mesh size of DNS. We also knew that the multifractal distribution of singularities in physical space, on which the present analysis rests, is robust enough to allow us to apply the multifractal analysis to the ranges outside of the inertial range. How to put the information of energy-input scale into the multifractal analysis is one of the important future problems . It may be resolved when one succeeds to reveal the dynamical foundation underlying the basis of the multifractal analysis, starting an investigation by the stochastic Navier-Stokes equation with the energy input term. If one could put the stochastic Navier-Stokes equation under the influence of white Gaussian noise, describing thermal fluctuation related to kinematic viscosity, into a linealized stochastic equation with a renormalized turbulent viscosity , the relevant stochastic process should be the one related to the PDF of accelerations derived in this paper, which may be named Rényi or Tsallis process. The success of the multifractal analysis in the studies of experimental PDFs may indicate that the multifractal distribution of singularities in physical space are robust against the addition of the energy-input term.

The application of the present multifractal analysis to the micrometeorological study of atmospheric turbulence is one of the attractive future problems. The tail part is specified by the intermittency exponent, and the center part may give us the information, for example, about the thermodynamical structure of the canopy in Amazon forest . The application to the vortex tangle  in the superfluids 4He and 3He is another examples of the exciting future problems. In low temperature, the tail part of PDF comes from the singularity in the superfluid component within the two fluid model, and is determined by the intermittency exponent. Whereas, the value of $`q^{}`$ for the center part of PDF may be determined by the dynamical structure of quantized vortices. The multifractal analysis may also open new aspect for the systems with large deviation found in a large variety of areas (see, for example, the web site in ), and its applications to these areas will be reported elsewhere.

## Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Prof. R.H. Kraichnan for his critical and enlightening comments, and Prof. C. Tsallis for his fruitful comments with encouragement. The authors are grateful to Prof. E. Bodenschatz and Prof. T. Gotoh for the kindness to show their data prior to publication.