Vorticity Generation in Slow Cooling Flows

We show that any generic non-adiabatic slow flow of ideal compressible fluid develops a significant vorticity. As an example, an initially irrotational conductive cooling flow is considered. A perturbation theory for the vorticity generation is developed that employs, as a zero order solution, a novel two-dimensional similarity solution. Full gasdynamic simulations of this CF demonstrate the vorticity generation and support the theory. The relevance of this problem to the experiments with the "hot channels" is discussed.