Hamiltonian chaos and transport in quasigeostrophic flows

Conference · Fri Apr 12 04:00:00 EDT 1991

OSTI ID:5451726

del Castillo, D; Morrison, P J

Chaotic advective transport in quasigeostrophic flows is studied. Of particular interest is to compare theory with recent rotating tank experiments. Ideas regarding chaotic advection are briefly reviewed. A derivation of the quasigeostrophic equation relevant to the tank experiments is given, from which a model for the stream function is extracted and compared to experimental data. Linear theory is shown to predict correctly the onset of observed sinuous Rossby waves. A model stream function, composed of a zonal flow equilibrium with linear eigenfunctions, is used to study chaotic transport. Upon applying the Chirikov overlap criterion to the model it is seen, in agreement with experiments, that banded chaos, i.e., regions of chaos bounded by invariant surfaces, is to be expected. It is also shown that global chaos, and hence transport across the zonal flow, is inconsistent with linear theory and in general requires resonances with phase velocities near the peak velocity of the zonal flow equilibrium. Speculations regarding the consistency of chaos and conservation of potential vorticity are made.

• Research Organization: Texas Univ., Austin, TX (United States). Inst. for Fusion Studies
• Sponsoring Organization: DOE; USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
• DOE Contract Number: FG05-80ET53088
• OSTI ID: 5451726
• Report Number(s): DOE/ET/53088-492; IFSR--492; CONF-910250--1; ON: DE91017385
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

640410* -- Fluid Physics-- General Fluid Dynamics
70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY
700103 -- Fusion Energy-- Plasma Research-- Kinetics
75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS
SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND SUPERFLUIDITY
ADVECTION
DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS
EQUATIONS
FLUID FLOW
HAMILTONIANS
MASS TRANSFER
MATHEMATICAL OPERATORS
NAVIER-STOKES EQUATIONS
PARTIAL DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS
PLASMA WAVES
QUANTUM OPERATORS
RANDOMNESS