Enhancing Efficiency of Mixing in Chaotic Flows

We propose a mechanism by which the efficiency of mixing in chaotic flows can be enhanced. Our mechanism consists of introducing small changes in the system parameters in regions of phase space where the local Lyapunov exponent falls substantially below its average value. We have applied our mechanism to several typical chaotic maps and flows including a system of chemical reactions. We find that our method is quite efficient as it gives a substantial enhancement of the rate of mixing with small changes in system parameters, without disturbing the attractor significantly.