2022/12/07 by Christian Reartes, Pablo D. Mininni, Reartes, Christian +1 · 1 citation
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Engineering · #Aeolian processes and effects #Atmospheric and Oceanic Physics (physics.ao-ph) #FOS: Physical sciences #Fluid Dynamics (physics.flu-dyn) #Fluid Dynamics and Turbulent Flows #Particle Dynamics in Fluid Flows
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2212.03393
openalex publication_date 2022/12/07 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
Inertial particles in stably stratified flows play a fundamental role in geophysics, from the dynamics of nutrients in the ocean to the dispersion of pollutants in the atmosphere. We consider the Maxey-Riley equation for small neutrally buoyant inertial particles in the Boussinesq approximation, and discuss its limits of validity. We show that particles behave as forced damped oscillators, with different regimes depending on the particles Stokes number and the fluid Brunt-Väisälä frequency. Using direct numerical simulations we study the particles dynamics and we show that small neutrally buoyant particles in these flows tend to cluster in regions of low local vorticity. The particles, albeit small, behave fundamentally differently than tracers.