Temperature structure functions in the Bolgiano regime of thermal convection.

We measure temperature fluctuations in the Rayleigh-Bénard apparatus, which is a closed cylindrical container with the bottom wall heated and the top wall cooled. The aspect ratio, which is the diameter-to-height ratio of the apparatus, is unity. The Rayleigh number is 1.5 x 10(11). The working fluid is cryogenic helium gas. We compute temperature structure functions up to order 16, and use extended self-similarity to obtain scaling exponents in the Bolgiano regime. In contrast to passive scalars, the scaling exponents tend not to saturate with the order of the structure function, suggesting the absence of ramplike structures in temperature traces of convective motion.