Transient dynamics of perturbations in astrophysical disks

We review some aspects of a major unsolved problem in understanding astrophysical (in particular, accretion) disks: whether the disk interiors can be effectively viscous in spite of the absence of magnetorotational instability. A rotational homogeneous inviscid flow with a Keplerian angular velocity profile is spectrally stable, making the transient growth of perturbations a candidate mechanism for energy transfer from regular motion to perturbations. Transient perturbations differ qualitatively from perturbation modes and can grow substantially in shear flows due to the nonnormality of their dynamical evolution operator. Because the eigenvectors of this operator, also known as perturbation modes, are not pairwise orthogonal, they can mutually interfere, resulting in the transient growth of their linear combinations. Physically, a growing transient perturbation is a leading spiral whose branches are shrunk as a result of the differential rotation of the flow. We discuss in detail the transient growth of vortex shearing harmonics in the spatially local limit, as well as methods for identifying the optimal (fastest growth) perturbations. Special attention is given to obtaining such solutions variationally by integrating the respective direct and adjoint equations forward and backward in time. The presentation is intended for experts new to the subject.