Clustering of floating tracers in weakly divergent velocity fields.

This work deals with buoyant tracers floating at the ocean surface, where the geostrophic velocity component is two dimensional and rotational (nondivergent) and the ageostrophic component can contain rotational and potential (divergent) contributions that are comparable in size. We consider a random kinematic flow model and study the process of clustering, that is, aggregation of the floating tracer in localized spatial patches. In the long-time limit and in the cases of strongly and weakly divergent flows, the existing analytical theory predicts the process of exponential clustering, which is the emergence of spatial singularities containing all the available tracer.

Publisher's Note: Impact of diffusion on surface clustering in random hydrodynamic flows [Phys. Rev. E 95, 013109 (2017)].

This corrects the article DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevE.95.

Impact of diffusion on surface clustering in random hydrodynamic flows.

Buoyant material clustering in a stochastic flow, which is homogeneous and isotropic in space and stationary in time, is addressed. The dynamics of buoyant material in three-dimensional hydrodynamic flows can be considered as the motion of passive tracers in a compressible two-dimensional velocity field. The latter is of interest in the present study.

Resonance phenomena in a two-layer two-vortex shear flow.

The paper deals with a dynamical system governing the motion of two point vortices embedded in the bottom layer of a two-layer rotating flow experiencing linear deformation and their influence on fluid particle advection. The linear deformation consists of shear and rotational components. If the deformation is stationary, the vortices can move periodically in a bounded region.

Local parametric instability near elliptic points in vortex flows under shear deformation.

The dynamics of two point vortices embedded in an oscillatory external flow consisted of shear and rotational components is addressed. The region associated with steady-state elliptic points of the vortex motion is established to experience local parametric instability. The instability forces the point vortices with initial positions corresponding to the steady-state elliptic points to move in spiral-like divergent trajectories.