Abstract
I review the local theory of mixing, which focuses on infinitesimal blobs of scalar being advected and stretched by a random velocity field. An advantage of this theory is that it provides elegant analytical results. A disadvantage is that it is highly idealised. Nevertheless, it provides insight into the mechanism of chaotic mixing and the effect of random fluctuations on the rate of decay of the concentration field of a passive scalar.
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Thiffeault, JL. (2008). Scalar Decay in Chaotic Mixing. In: Weiss, J.B., Provenzale, A. (eds) Transport and Mixing in Geophysical Flows. Lecture Notes in Physics, vol 744. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-75215-8_1
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