On the spreading of a turbulent spot in the absence of a pressure gradient

Abstract

We derive a path-integral representation for the effective diffusion function of a passive scalar field. We use it to calculate the long-time effective diffusivity in Gaussian turbulence in the near-Markovian limit. Our results confirm the negative effect of vorticity predicted by previous discussions. They also demonstrate that the helicity of the turbulence when present may be as important an influence as the vorticity.