Barotropic vorticity transport Created 2026-10-05 Updated 2026-10-06
For an inviscid barotropic fluid with only potential body forces, the vorticity obeys
The pressure force is a gradient because . A spatially uniform specific entropy makes a fixed-composition fluid barotropic. Merely having does not exclude baroclinic vorticity generation from spatial entropy gradients.
With the streamfunction convention , constant scalar vorticity gives . For steady inviscid constant-density flow without body force, this integrates to
throughout a connected fluid region. Reversing the streamfunction convention changes the sign of its term; the declared convention matters.
Brinkman equation 2026-10-07
The Brinkman equation augments Stokes flow with a local drag against a background matrix of velocity . The inverse screening length has units of inverse length. With equal viscous coefficients the permeability is . Taking the curl produces a screened vorticity equation.
Convective acceleration 2026-10-06
Convective acceleration is the spatial part of the material derivative of fluid velocity. It can remain nonzero in steady flow, because a moving particle passes through positions with different velocities. The identity relates it to vorticity.
The local vector-calculus identity
separates the convective acceleration into a kinetic-energy gradient and a vorticity cross-product contribution. Substitution into the steady Euler equations for an inviscid fluid yields the vorticity form of the Bernoulli equation.
In a planar force-driven encounter with a fixed equal sphere and positive impact parameter , the mobility correction from a fixed distant sphere gives . The moving sphere reaches maximum deflection and rotates clockwise through to leading order. The spin is obtained by integrating half the reflected Stokeslet vorticity, as prescribed by Faxén rotation law. These numerical formulas require a distant encounter.
Faxén's rotational law Created 2026-09-28 Updated 2026-10-06
For a sphere of radius in a slowly varying ambient Stokes flow of vorticity , its angular velocity and applied torque obey
at the sphere centre.
At an isolated interface with continuous base velocity, a stable density drop and a jump of base shear, decaying disturbances obey the displayed dispersion relation. It follows by inserting their derivative jump into the jump conditions for stratified inviscid shear flow. Both the density jump and the vorticity jump contribute to the intrinsic phase velocity .
In a log-pressure coordinate, quasi-geostrophic potential vorticity uses density-weighted vertical stretching. For stratification and geostrophic flow , the inviscid equation is . Combining horizontal vorticity balance with the thermal equation eliminates ageostrophic flow and gives this conservation law.
The material-boundary and vorticity conditions give and . A pressureless particle subject to linear drag, Coriolis acceleration and tidal gravity has the drag-polynomial stability for all positive stopping rates with , and . In Keplerian shear, , and . The exact criterion is , including the boundary at . Attraction is local to the centre under the prescribed interior velocity field; a trajectory leaving the patch cannot be followed using that field alone.