Lagrangian chaos in confined two-dimensional oscillatory convection

International audienceThe chaotic advection of passive tracers in a two-dimensional confined convection flow is addressed numerically near the onset of the oscillatory regime. We investigate here a differentially heated cavity with aspect ratio 2 and Prandtl number 0.71 for Rayleigh numbers around the first Hopf bifurcation. A scattering approach reveals different zones depending on whether the statistics of return times exhibit exponential or algebraic decay. Melnikov functions are computed and predict the appearance of the main mixing regions via the break-up of the homoclinic and heteroclinic orbits. The non-hyperbolic regions are characterised by a larger number of Kolmogorov–Arnold– Moser (KAM) tori. Based on the numerical extraction of many unstable periodic orbits (UPOs) and their stable/unstable manifolds, we suggest a coarse-graining procedure to estimate numerically the spatial fraction of chaos inside the cavity as a function of the Rayleigh number. Mixing is almost complete before the first transition to quasi- periodicity takes place. The algebraic mixing rate is estimated for tracers released from a localised source near the hot wall