We discuss a theoretical framework to define an optimal subgrid closure for shell models of turbulence. The closure is based on the ansatz that consecutive shell multipliers are short-range correlated, following the third hypothesis of Kolmogorov formulated for similar quantities for the original three-dimensional Navier-Stokes turbulence. We also propose a series of systematic approximations to the optimal model by assuming different degrees of correlations across scales among amplitudes and phases of consecutive multipliers. We show numerically that such low-order closures work well, reproducing all known properties of the large-scale dynamics including anomalous scaling. We found small but systematic discrepancies only for a range of scales close to the subgrid threshold, which do not tend to disappear by increasing the order of the approximation. We speculate that the lack of convergence might be due to a structural instability, at least for the evolution of very fast degrees of freedom at small scales. Connections with similar problems for large eddy simulations of the three-dimensional Navier-Stokes equations are also discussed.

• Received 10 January 2017

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.95.043108