Put , and , where . The small- Taylor series give
In the Kármán-Howarth equation, the coefficient of on the left is . On the right, the triple-correlation term contributes and the viscous term contributes . Hence
Comparing with the mean enstrophy balance identifies the mean vortex stretching:
Also , whereas differentiability gives . Thus . Homogeneity makes , so the longitudinal velocity-gradient skewness is . Substitution gives
Positive mean vortex stretching therefore requires negative skewness. A centered Gaussian distribution has zero third moment, so the derivative statistics cannot be Gaussian. This conclusion uses the physically positive mean stretching, not homogeneity alone.
The probability density function has mean zero but a longer or stronger negative tail, representing intermittent compression. The illustration uses a standardized Gaussian mixture distribution solely to sketch this sign of skewness; it is not turbulence simulation data or a fitted universal distribution.
Figure 1.
Illustrative negatively skewed longitudinal velocity-gradient density
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