Quasi-Objective Coherent Structure Diagnostics from Single Trajectories

Abstract

We derive measures of local material stretching and rotation that are computable from individual trajectories without reliance on other trajectories or on an underlying velocity field. Both measures are quasi-objective: they approximate objective (i.e., observer-independent) coherence diagnostics in frames satisfying a certain condition. This condition requires the trajectory accelerations to dominate the angular acceleration induced by the spatial mean vorticity. We illustrate in examples how quasi-objective coherence diagnostics highlight elliptic and hyperbolic Lagrangian coherent structures even from very sparse trajectory data.