A lattice gas automaton approach to “turbulent diffusion”

A periodic Kolmogorov type flow is implemented in a lattice gas automaton. For given aspect ratios of the automaton universe and within a range of Reynolds number values, the averaged flow evolves towards a stationary two-dimensional ABC type flow. We show the analogy between the streamlines of the flow in the automaton and the phase plane trajectories of a dynamical system. In practice flows are commonly studied by seeding the fluid with suspended particles which play the role of passive tracers. Since an actual flow is time-dependent and has fluctuations, the tracers exhibit interesting intrinsic dynamics. When tracers are implemented in the automaton and their trajectories are followed, we find that the tracers displacements obey a diffusion law, with “super-diffusion” in the direction orthogonal to the direction of the initial forcing.