Probing turbulence intermittency via autoregressive moving-average models

We suggest an approach to probing intermittency corrections to the Kolmogorov law in turbulent flows based on the autoregressive moving-average modeling of turbulent time series. We introduce an index Υ that measures the distance from a Kolmogorov-Obukhov model in the autoregressive moving-average model space. Applying our analysis to particle image velocimetry and laser Doppler velocimetry measurements in a von Kármán swirling flow, we show that Υ is proportional to traditional intermittency corrections computed from structure functions. Therefore, it provides the same information, using much shorter time series. We conclude that Υ is a suitable index to reconstruct intermittency in experimental turbulent fields.