Coherent Lagrangian vortices: The black holes of turbulence

Abstract

We introduce a simple variational principle for coherent material vortices in two-dimensional turbulence. Vortex boundaries are sought as closed stationary curves of the averaged Lagrangian strain. Solutions to this problem turn out to be mathematically equivalent to photon spheres around black holes in cosmology. The fluidic photon spheres satisfy explicit differential equations whose outermost limit cycles are optimal Lagrangian vortex boundaries. As an application, we uncover super-coherent material eddies in the South Atlantic, which yield specific Lagrangian transport estimates for Agulhas rings.