Rogers, M., & Rypina, I. (2025). Dynamics of inertial particles in flows with stochasticity. Journal of Physical Oceanography.  https://doi.org/10.1175/jpo-d-24-0117.1

In this paper we derive and test a simple advection-diffusion model for the evolution of distributions of small, rigid, non-neutrally-buoyant particles in fluid flows with a stochastic turbulent component. Three different tracers are released in an idealized simulation of three-dimensional turbulence: (a) a passive fluid tracer, (b) a buoyant fluid tracer that is advected at the sum of the fluid velocity and a rising velocity, and (c) a distribution of small, solid particles with the same buoyancy as the buoyant fluid tracer. Tracers are injected at a constant rate via a Gaussian source at the center of the domain. Snapshots of horizontal slices of the concentration fields of each tracer p(x,y) are plotted at the (top row) surface, (middle row) mid-depth, and (bottom row) bottom boundary of the domain. The inertia of the small, solid particles causes their motion to deviate from that of the buoyant fluid tracer. The resulting discrepancies between the concentration field of the buoyant tracer and that of the inertial particles are depicted as p'(x, y) in column (d). At small scales, inertial effects may cause particles to cluster near some flow features and evacuate others. In this example, local differences between the inertial particle and buoyant tracer distributions are on the order of 10%.