Statistics of quasi-geostrophic point vortices

The statistics of quasi-geostrophic point vortices is investigated theoretically and numerically, in order to understand fundamental aspects of quasi-geostrophic turbulence. The numerical computations are performed using the fast special-purpose computer for molecular dynamics simulations, MDGRAPE-2/3. The most probable vortex distributions are determined based on the maximum entropy theory. The theoretical predictions agree well with the numerical results.