2003/04/30 by H. Faisst, B. Eckhardt · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #nlin.CD #physics.flu-dyn
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.91.224502
published as Phys. Rev. Lett. 91, 224502 (2003) · 4 pages, 5 figures
arxiv created 2003/10/15 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30
A family of three-dimensional travelling waves for flow through a pipe of circular cross section is identified. The travelling waves are dominated by pairs of downstream vortices and streaks. They originate in saddle-node bifurcations at Reynolds numbers as low as 1250. All states are immediately unstable. Their dynamical significance is that they provide a skeleton for the formation of a chaotic saddle that can explain the intermittent transition to turbulence and the sensitive dependence on initial conditions in this shear flow.