Steady and perturbed motion of a point vortex along a boundary with a circular cavity

• The dynamics of a point vortex moving along a straight boundary with a circular cavity is addressed.
• Three phase portrait structures depending on the cavity's circular shape are singled out.
• Forcing parameters that lead to effective destabilization of vortex trajectories are found.

The dynamics of a point vortex moving along a straight boundary with a circular cavity subjected to a background flow is investigated. Given the constant background flow, this configuration produces regular phase portraits of the vortex motion. These phase portraits are discriminated depending on the cavity's circular shape, and then the transition to chaos of the vortex motion is investigated given an oscillating perturbation superimposed on the background flow. Based on the steady-state vortex rotation, the forcing parameters that lead to effective destabilization of vortex trajectories are distinguished. We show that, provided the cavity aperture is relatively narrow, the periodic forcing superimposed on the background flow destabilizes the vortex trajectories very slightly. On the other hand, if the cavity aperture is relatively wide, the forcing can significantly destabilize vortex trajectories causing the majority of the trajectories, which would be closed without the forcing, to move towards infinity.