Multifractal clustering of passive tracers on a surface flow

Abstract

We study the anomalous scaling of the mass density measure of Lagrangian tracers in a compressible flow realized on the free surface on top of a three dimensional flow. The full two dimensional probability distribution of local stretching rates is measured. The intermittency exponents which quantify the fluctuations of the mass measure of tracers at small scales are calculated from the large deviation form of stretching rate fluctuations. The results indicate the existence of a critical exponent $n_c\simeq 0.86$ above which exponents saturate, in agreement with what has been predicted by an analytically solvable model. Direct evaluation of the multi-fractal dimensions by reconstructing the coarse-grained particle density supports the results for low order moments.

7 pages, 4 figures, submitted to EPL

References in corpus (5)

• Particles and fields in fluid turbulence
• Universal long-time properties of Lagrangian statistics in the Batchelor regime and their application to the passive scalar problem
• Fractal clustering of inertial particles in random flows
• Lagrangian tracers on a surface flow: the role of time correlations
• Turbulence in a free surface

Cited by in corpus (8)

• Statistical models for spatial patterns of heavy particles in turbulence
• Power-law distributions of particle concentration in free-surface flows
• Small-scale dynamics and structure of free-surface turbulence
• Stochastic processes in turbulent transport
• Test particle energization of heavy ions in magnetohydrodynamic turbulence
• Weak-strong clustering transition in renewing compressible flows
• Weak compressibility of surface wave turbulence
• Fluctuations of separation of trajectories in chaos and correlation dimension