Long-time behavior of optimal mixing in an advection-diffusion shell model

Abstract: We investigate the long-time behavior of optimal mixing in an advection-diffusion equation using a shell model framework. Our focus is on quantifying the decay of the scalar variance, measured by the negative Sobolev norm $H<sup>{-1}$, under enstrophy-constrained stirring. We perform long-time computations using both local-in-time (maximizing the instantaneous mixing rate) and global-in-time (maximizing mixedness at a prescribed final time) optimization strategies. For mixing with diffusion ($κ&gt;0$), the numerical results show that the scalar length scale eventually becomes limited by a generalized Batchelor scale, in close agreement with theoretical predictions. In this regime, the $H<sup>{-1}$ mix-norm decays exponentially in time with a decay rate that is independent of the diffusivity $κ$. Compared with the purely advective case ($κ= 0$), diffusion significantly enhances the long-time mixing rate; moreover, increasing diffusivity further improves mixing efficiency by reducing the prefactor of the exponential decay. Guided by these numerical observations, we derive new conditional lower bounds on the $H<sup>{-1}$ norm whose exponential decay rates are strictly independent of the diffusivity parameter $κ$, for all $κ&gt; 0$. We further establish conditional upper bounds on the maximal rate of enhanced dissipation of the scalar variance, showing that the effective diffusion time scale is at least of the order $|\logκ|$.