We propose numerical simulations of viscoelastic fluids based on a hybrid algorithm combining Lattice-Boltzmann models (LBM) and Finite Differences (FD) schemes, the former used to model the macroscopic hydrodynamic equations, and the latter used to model the polymer dynamics. The kinetics of the polymers is introduced using constitutive equations for viscoelastic fluids with finitely extensible non-linear elastic dumbbells with Peterlin's closure (FENE-P).

A numerical study of turbulence seeded with light particles is presented. We analyze the statistical properties of coherent, small-scale structures by looking at the trapping events of light particles inside vortex filaments. We study the properties of particles attracting set, measuring its fractal dimension and the probability that the separation between two particles remains within the dissipative scale, even for time lapses as long as the large-scale correlation time, T(L).

In this paper we present an implementation for the QPACE supercomputer of a Lattice Boltzmann model of a fluid-dynamics flow in 2 dimensions. QPACE is a massively parallel application-driven system powered by the Cell processor. We review the structure of the model, describe in details its implementation on QPACE and finally present performance data and preliminary physics results. (C) 2010 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

We compute the continuum thermohydrodynamical limit of a new formulation of lattice kinetic equations for thermal compressible flows, recently proposed by Sbragaglia [J. Fluid Mech. 628, 299 (2009)]. We show that the hydrodynamical manifold is given by the correct compressible Fourier-Navier-Stokes equations for a perfect fluid. We validate the numerical algorithm by means of exact results for transition to convection in Rayleigh-Beacutenard compressible systems and against direct comparison with finite-difference schemes.

We study the Couette flow of a quasi-2d soft-glassy material in a Hele-Shaw geometry. The material is chosen to be above the jamming point, where a yield stress sigma(Upsilon) emerges, below which the material deforms elastically and above which it flows like a complex fluid according to a Herschel-Bulkley (HB) rheology. Simultaneously, the effect of the confining plates is modelled as an effective linear friction law, while the walls aside the Hele-Shaw cell are sufficiently close to each other to allow visible cooperativity effects in the velocity profiles (Goyon et al., 2008).

The definition of the Simon tensor, originally given only in Kerr spacetime and associated with the static family of observers, is generalized to any spacetime and to any possible observer family. Such generalization is obtained by a standard '3 + 1' splitting of the Bianchi identities, which are rewritten here as a 'balance equation' between various spatial fields, associated with the kinematical properties of the observer congruence and representing the spacetime curvature.

The (first-order) gravitational self-force correction to the spin-orbit precession of a spinning compact body along a slightly eccentric orbit around a Schwarzschild black hole is computed through the ninth postNewtonian order and to second order in the eccentricity, improving recent results by Kavanagh et al. [Phys. Rev. D 96, 064012 (2017)]. We show that our higher-accurate theoretical estimates of the spin precession exhibits an improved agreement with corresponding numerical self-force data.