Characterizing the metastable balance between chaos and diffusion (Q5925906)

The paper aims to show the effective usefulness of some quantities in determining the characteristics of the dynamics of passive scalars. The passive scalars are diffused and mixed by an incompressible fluid flow, which is considered in the paper as given. The regimes of the system are identified by the Peclet number Pe, the first as Pe \(\to 0\), the second as Pe \(\to\infty\). In the large Pe regime, the advective term dominates and the system exhibits chaos and is rich in structures -- filaments of finer and finer size. In the small Pe regime, the diffusion is dominant and the system has a regular behavior. The author claims that the commonly used quantities which are considered to give a characterization of the dynamics, such as the rate of growth of the variance, don't give enough information for such aim. The author proposes to consider the parameter \(\chi\) as a characteristic quantity of the system, it is approximately the root mean square Fourier radius (it is precisely the ratio between the \(L^2\)-norm of the derivative of the density of the passive scalar and the \(L^2\)-norm of the density), it should give a measure of the richness of structures in the passive scalar. The picture of the dynamics given by \(\chi\) is the following. There is an initial chaotic regime (with Pe large), where \(\chi\) rapidly grows with exponential rate. After a critical time \(t_c\), depending on Pe and on the Lyapunov exponents of the dynamics, the diffusion becomes important, the parameter \(\chi\) decreases and goes to zero as \(1/t\). The parameter \(\chi\) identifies also a intermediate regime, when advection and diffusion balance each other, by means of a meta-stable value \(\chi_*\); in such regime it is possible to observe a (statistical) pattern persistence. The Renyi entropy, the logarithm of the \(L^2\)-norm of the density, is related to the quantity \(\chi\) and can characterize, in the same way as \(\chi\), the regimes of the system, in particular the entropy reveals also the meta-stable regime. The effectiveness of the quantities introduced is verified numerically on a simple model of chaotic Hamiltonian system, the so-called Arnol'd cat map.