The statistical distributions of one-dimensional "turbulence"

We study a one-dimensional discrete analog of the von Karman flow widely investigated in turbulence, made of a lattice of anharmonic oscillators excited by both ends in the presence of a dissipative term proportional to the second-order finite difference of the velocities, similar to the viscous term in a fluid. The dynamics of the model shows striking similarities with an actual turbulent flow, both at local and global scales. Calculations of the probability distribution function of velocity increments, extensively studied in turbulence, with a very large number of points in order to determine accurately the statistics of rare events, allow us to provide a meaningful comparison of different theoretical expressions of the PDFs. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.