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Period doubling and chaos in partial differential equations for thermosolutal convection

Nature volume 303, pages 663–667 (1983)Cite this article

Abstract

Numerical experiments on two-dimensional thermosolutal convection reveal a transition from periodic oscillations to chaos through a sequence of period-doubling bifurcations. Within the chaotic region there are narrow periodic windows. This is the first example of period-doubling in solutions of partial differential equations. A truncated model indicates that this behaviour is associated with heteroclinic explosions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics and Department of Astro-Geophysics, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado, 80309, USA

    D. R. Moore & J. Toomre

  2. Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, CB3 9EW, UK

    E. Knobloch & N. O. Weiss

  3. Department of Mathematics, Imperial College, London, SW7 2BZ, UK

    D. R. Moore

  4. Department of Physics, University of California, Berkeley, California, 94720, USA

    E. Knobloch

Authors
  1. D. R. Moore
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  2. J. Toomre
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  3. E. Knobloch
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  4. N. O. Weiss
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Moore, D., Toomre, J., Knobloch, E. et al. Period doubling and chaos in partial differential equations for thermosolutal convection. Nature 303, 663–667 (1983). https://doi.org/10.1038/303663a0

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