  The small scale statistics of homogeneous isotropic turbulence of dilute
polymer solutions is investigated by means of direct numerical simulations of a
simplified viscoelastic fluid model. It is found that polymers only partially
suppress the turbulent cascade below the Lumley scale, leaving a remnant energy
flux even for large elasticity. As a consequence, fluid acceleration in
viscoelastic flows is reduced with respect to Newtonian turbulence, whereas its
rescaled probability density is left unchanged. At large scales the velocity
field is found to be unaffected by the presence of polymers.
