Apparent scale correlations in a random multifractal process

We discuss various properties of a homogeneous random multifractal process, which are related to the issue of scale correlations. By design, the process has no built-in scale correlations. However, when it comes to observables like breakdown coefficients, which are based on a coarse-graining of the multifractal field, scale correlations do appear. In the log-normal limit of the model process, the conditional distributions and moments of breakdown coefficients reproduce the observations made in fully developed small-scale turbulence. These findings help to understand several puzzling empirical details, which have been extracted from turbulent data already some time ago. Copyright EDP Sciences/Società Italiana di Fisica/Springer-Verlag 2008