A theoretical study of radiative cooling in homogeneous and isotropic turbulence

Methods involving an application of two-point closure have been developed. It is pointed out that these closures should provide a systematic tool for the study of interaction between turbulence and long-wave radiation. In the present investigation, two-point closure is applied to a study of radiative cooling, taking into account conditions of homogeneous and isotropic turbulence. Attention is given to a radiative dissipative term, the local characteristic time of turbulent advection, aspects of local interactions, and nonlocal interactions and an 'inertial-radiative' subrange. A study is conducted of a critical regime which could not be analyzed by phenomenological models. In this regime, a balance occurs between the radiative dissipative term and a nonlocal part of the transfer term.