Topological characterization of flow structures in resistive pressure-gradient-driven turbulence

Visualization of turbulent flows is a powerful tool to help understand the turbulence dynamics and induced transport. However, it does not provide a quantitative description of the observed structures. In this paper, an approach to characterize quantitatively the topology of the flows is given. The technique, which can be applied to any type of turbulence dynamics, is illustrated through the example of resistive ballooning instabilities.