The role of diffusion in the chaotic advection of a passive scalar with finite lifetime

Abstract

We study the influence of diffusion on the scaling properties of the first order structure function, S_1, of a two-dimensional chaotically advected passive scalar with finite lifetime, i.e., with a decaying term in its evolution equation. We obtain an analytical expression for S_1 where the dependence on the diffusivity, the decaying coefficient and the stirring due to the chaotic flow is explicitly stated. We show that the presence of diffusion introduces a crossover length-scale, the diffusion scale (L_d), such that the scaling behaviour for the structure function is analytical for length-scales shorter than L_d, and shows a scaling exponent that depends on the decaying term and the mixing of the flow for larger scales. Therefore, the scaling exponents for scales larger than L_d are not modified with respect to those calculated in the zero diffusion limit. Moreover, L_d turns out to be independent of the decaying coeficient, being its value the same as for the passive scalar with infinite lifetime. Numerical results support our theoretical findings.