Clustering and chaotic motion of heavy inertial particles in an isolated non-axisymmetric vortex
We investigate the dynamics of heavy inertial particles in a flow field due to an isolated, non-axisymmetric vortex. For our study, we consider a canonical elliptical vortex - the Kirchhoff vortex and its strained variant, the Kida vortex. Contrary to the anticipated centrifugal dispersion of inertial particles, which is typical in open vortical flows, we observe the clustering of particles around co-rotating attractors near the Kirchhoff vortex due to its non-axisymmetric nature. We analyze th…