Vortex flows

The authors study flow fields with concentrations of large vorticity in spots or in slender tube-like regions, known as filaments, by a combination of the method of matched asymptotic analyses and numerical method. In many flows of interest, where vorticity effects are important, the flow field may be considered as inviscid and irrotational everywhere except in slender tube-like regions, called vortex filaments; where the vorticity is concentrated. In the usual classical idealization, where the diameter of the filament is small compared to the other scales characterizing the problem, the cross-sectional area of the tube is neglected and the slender tube-like filament is reduced to a curved line, called a vortex line, which is submerged in the fluid field.