Graduate School in Physics and Astrophysics ------------------------------------------- ANNUAL REPORT ------------------------------------------- Fill with a text editor (without TAB or formatting) Repeat fields for each course as necessary. ------------------------------------------- name: Alessandro Sozza email: alessandro.sozza@hotmail.it ciclo: 29 year completed (1,2 or 3): 1 supervisor: Guido Boffetta ------------------------------------------- GRADUATE SCHOOL COURSES (only completed courses, with examination passed in the year) code: / title: Finite temperature in Quantum Field theory teacher: M. Nardi - C. Ratti hours: 10 + tutoring ------------------------------------------- SUMMER SCHOOLS, INTERNATIONAL SCHOOLS (only those attended in the current year) title: IV Summer School on Statistical Physics of Complex and Small Systems place: IFISC, Palma de Maiorca, Spain webpage: http://www.gefenol.es/school2014 days: 11, 08-19 September 2014 talk or poster (Y/N): Y (Title: Floaters on Isopycnal Surfaces) ------------------------------------------- CONFERENCES, WORKSHOP (only those attended in the current year) title: Introduction to the FERMI Blue Gene/Q, for users and developers place: Cineca, Casalecchio di Reno (BO), Italia webpage: http://events.prace-ri.eu/conferenceDisplay.py?confId=124 days: 1, 18 March 2014 talk or poster (Y/N): N ------------------------------------------- CONFERENCES, WORKSHOP (only those attended in the current year) title: Dimensionality in Turbulence place: Coventry University, UK webpage: http://euromech.complexity-coventry.org/overview.xhtml days: 3, 19-21 May 2014 talk or poster (Y/N): Y (Title: Dimensional Transition in Quasi-2D Stratified Turbulence) ------------------------------------------- CONFERENCES, WORKSHOP (only those attended in the current year) title: Active Fluids: New Challenges from Experiments to High-Performance Computing place: Mariehamn, Finland webpage: http://agenda.albanova.se/conferenceDisplay.py?confId=4188 days: 4, 27-30 May 2014 talk or poster (Y/N): N ------------------------------------------- CONFERENCES, WORKSHOP (only those attended in the current year) title: XIX Congresso nazionale di fisica statistica e sistemi complessi place: Università degli Studi di Parma, Italia webpage: http://www.fis.unipr.it/stat/PARMA2014/welcome2014.htm days: 3, 25-27 June 2014 talk or poster (Y/N): N --------------------------------------------------- Research activity/Publications in the current year (max characters 2500) During this year I've focused on a set of topics in geophysical turbulence. The first argument, inherited from the master thesis, was the investigation of the dimensional transition occurring between 2D and 3D turbulent systems. In particular I’ve considered the consequences on this transition in the presence of a stable density stratification. Such onset is peculiar to the ocean and atmosphere dynamics, which can be idealized as fluid systems confined in a thin layer and subjected to gravitational (and also rotational) forces. Secondly, I moved on to study lagrangian dynamics in a stratified turbulent flow. The majority of the marine life, formed by micro-organisms such as plankton and bacteria, dwells in the upper ocean, sustained by light, nutrients and turbulence. It’s well-known that the pycnocline plays a fundamental role in many ecological and biological processes, e.g. marine snow and plankton layers. We investigate, by means of DNS, the dynamics of floaters which are neutrally buoyant on some isopycnal surface in a stratified turbulent flow. We derive an asymptotic model in the limit of non-inertial particles. Particles, due to gravity, are forced to relax on their isopycnal surface, where they are neutrally buoyant with the fluid, and then tend to perform fractal clustering on the surface. Because of this, I decided to deepen the differential geometry of surfaces, and the covariant formulation of the hydrodynamics. An interesting question, which is emerged from these studies regards the properties of incompressible and compressible flows on a curved manifold. During this year, I’ve also extended my knowledge on parallel computing with MPI and openMP, and in the development of a parallel code for direct numerical simulation of the Boussinesq equations, together with the lagrangian description of the floaters. Submitted paper at Physics of Fluid (not published yet): A. Sozza, G. Boffetta, P. Muratore-Ginanneschi, S. Musacchio - Dimensional transition of energy cascades in stably stratified thin fluid layers. BE AWARE: research activity and Pubs are not evaluated as didactic credits, but are requested to trace the PhD students' career