Shadowing and the role of small diffusivity in the chaotic advection of scalars

Using techniques from shadowing theory, the solution of the scalar advection–diffusion equation is studied. It is shown that, under certain circumstances, the effect of small scalar diffusivity is to smooth the zero-diffusivity solution by averaging local fine-scaled structure against a Gaussian. The method of study depends on shadowing and thus fails for nonuniformly stretching systems, its failure suggesting the ways in which the effects of asymptotically small molecular diffusion can become nonlocal in chaotic fluid flows.