Laboratory Study of the Dynamics of Jovian-Type Vortices

A laboratory experiment on a turbulent shear flow in a rapidly rotating annulus yields vortices with many properties of jovian vortices, including their spontaneous formation and persistence, the merger of vortices of like sign, and particle trapping. When the fluid is strongly forced (Reynolds number >_ 104), a wide zone of nearly uniform potential vorticity forms, and vortices successively merge until only a single dominate vortex remains. In the less turbulent flow of a weakly forced fluid, the zone of uniform potential vorticity is narrower and multiple vortex states are found. These observations are compared to numerical simulations and to related experiments as well as to jovian vortices.