A novel non-specular mechanism for chaotic ray scattering of internal waves in 3D anisotropic stadiums

Abstract

Fluids, subject to symmetry breaking by stratification support propagation of anisotropic internal waves - IWs. In the vertical plane, rays representing energy paths obey a non-specular reflection law, as their inclination is solely dictated by their frequency. Although satisfying the linear Poincare equation, in basins having sloping walls, ray dynamics exhibits nonlinear effects such as convergence onto wave-attractors. In contrast, in the horizontal plane of a basin with vertical walls IWs reflect specularly, and follow chaotic ray paths. Here we present a novel analysis of these competing effects in a 3D IW ray billiard of a stadium having sloping walls. We show and explain how varying the walls slope, shifts the ray dynamics between regimes of near-ergodicity, chaotic scattering, and non-chaotic scattering with self-similar patterns, despite the basin being closed. The rich results stemming from the interplay between elliptical ergodicity and hyperbolic focusing relate to a broader context of physical phenomena.