Strange nonchaotic attractor in an unforced turbulent reactive flow system

Beeraiah Thonti; Shruti Tandon; Premraj Durairaj; R I Sujith

doi:10.1063/5.0233819

Strange nonchaotic attractor in an unforced turbulent reactive flow system

Chaos. 2024 Dec 1;34(12):121101. doi: 10.1063/5.0233819.

Authors

Beeraiah Thonti^{1

2}, Shruti Tandon^{1

2}, Premraj Durairaj³, R I Sujith^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Aerospace Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai 600 036, India.
² Centre of Excellence for Studying Critical Transitions in Complex Systems, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai 600 036, India.
³ Institute of Systems Science, Huaqiao University, Xiamen 361021, China.

PMID: 39621475
DOI: 10.1063/5.0233819

Abstract

We discover strange nonchaotic attractor (SNA) through experiments in an unforced system comprising turbulent reactive flow. While models suggest SNAs are common in dynamical systems, experimental observations are primarily limited to systems with external forcing. We observe SNA prior to the emergence of periodic oscillations from chaotic fluctuations. In complex systems, self-organization can lead to order, and inherent nonlinearity can induce chaos. The occurrence of SNA, which is nonchaotic yet nonperiodic in one such complex system, is intriguing.