Waves drive the rise and fall of 2D flows in rotating turbulence

Abstract: Turbulence follows a few well-known organizational principles, rooted in conservation laws. One such principle states that a system conserving two sign-definite invariants self-organizes into large-scale structures. Ordinary three-dimensional turbulence does not fall within this paradigm. However, when subject to rotation, 3D turbulence is profoundly altered: rotation produces 3D inertial waves, while also sustaining emergent two-dimensional structures and favoring domain-scale flows called condensates. This interplay raises a fundamental question: why and when are 2D flows sustained even when only 3D waves are excited? Using extensive numerical simulations of the rotating 3D Navier-Stokes equations together with a quasi-linear wave-kinetic theory, we show that near-resonant interactions between 3D waves and a large-scale 2D flow impose an additional conservation law: inertial waves must conserve their helicity separately for each helicity sign. This emergent sign-definite invariant constrains the waves to transfer their energy to large-scale 2D motions. However, as rotation increases, resonance conditions become more restrictive and the energy transfer from 3D to 2D progressively vanishes, leading to a transition from condensate-dominated turbulence to pure inertial-wave turbulence for the 3D modes. We derive analytical expressions for this 3D-2D energy transfer as a function of rotation, Reynolds number and domain geometry, and verify them numerically. Together, these results establish a mechanism underlying two-dimensionalization in rotating turbulence, and, more broadly, illustrate how wave-mean flow interactions can drive large-scale self-organization.