Shearless transport barriers in unsteady two-dimensional flows and maps

Abstract: We develop a variational principle that extends the notion of a shearless transport barrier from steady to general unsteady two-dimensional flows and maps defined over a finite time interval. This principle reveals that hyperbolic Lagrangian Coherent Structures (LCSs) and parabolic LCSs (or jet cores) are the two main types of shearless barriers in unsteady flows. Based on the boundary conditions they satisfy, parabolic barriers are found to be more observable and robust than hyperbolic barriers, confirming widespread numerical observations. Both types of barriers are special null-geodesics of an appropriate Lorentzian metric derived from the Cauchy--Green strain tensor. Using this fact, we devise an algorithm for the automated computation of parabolic barriers. We illustrate our detection method on steady and unsteady non-twist maps and on the aperiodically forced Bickley jet.