Lagrangian dynamics of heavy inertial particles on vortical flows

We study the dynamics of dust particles in various vortical flows which is relevant to geophysical context. The inertial particles are advected by the background vortex flow. The dynamics is tracked using the Maxey-Riley equation. The finite inertia of the particles make their dynamics different from passive fluid parcels, which is interesting. The dust particles may show periodic dynamics or chaotic diffusion depending on parametric variations. The result contradicts the earlier predictions that only density matched inertial particles can have chaotic dynamics, which we justify through our explanation. In addition, the heavy inertial particles in a self rotating vortex patch is observed to be attracted near the vortical region, which is contrary to the physics where they should ideally centrifuged out. The reason behind this phenomena also we explore in detail here.