Statistical theory applied to a vortex street generated from meander of a jet

Abstract

Statistic features of a vortex street formed by instability of a jet are investigated by numerical calculation and statistic theory. A formation process of a vortex street is numerically calculated using a simple barotropic quasi-geostrophic system: a jet in the initial state begins to meander owing to its instability and vortices are formed in both flanks of the jet and become a steady vortex street. Statistic theory of vorticity mixing for two-dimensional fluid, which describes the statistically steady equilibrium state based on the maximum entropy assumption, is applied to the numerically obtained features of the steady vortex street. The theoretically derived relation between stream function and potential vorticity explains the results in the numerical calculation very well. However, in the numerical calculation, there remain regions where the fluid is not mixed well. By calculating mixing process of another scalar, the unmixed region is clearly shown on the physical plane.