Ordered and Disordered Defect Chaos

Defect-chaos is studied numerically in coupled Ginzburg-Landau equations for parametrically driven waves. The motion of the defects is traced in detail yielding their life-times, annihilation partners, and distances traveled. In a regime in which in the one-dimensional case the chaotic dynamics is due to double phase slips, the two-dimensional system exhibits a strongly ordered stripe pattern. When the parity-breaking instability to traveling waves is approached this order vanishes and the correlation function decays rapidly. In the ordered regime the defects have a typical life-time, whereas in the disordered regime the life-time distribution is exponential. The probability of large defect loops is substantially larger in the disordered regime.Comment: 8 pages revtex, 8 figure

A Non-Equilibrium Defect-Unbinding Transition: Defect Trajectories and Loop Statistics

In a Ginzburg-Landau model for parametrically driven waves a transition between a state of ordered and one of disordered spatio-temporal defect chaos is found. To characterize the two different chaotic states and to get insight into the break-down of the order, the trajectories of the defects are tracked in detail. Since the defects are always created and annihilated in pairs the trajectories form loops in space time. The probability distribution functions for the size of the loops and the number of defects involved in them undergo a transition from exponential decay in the ordered regime to a power-law decay in the disordered regime. These power laws are also found in a simple lattice model of randomly created defect pairs that diffuse and annihilate upon collision.Comment: 4 pages 5 figure

Phase Diffusion in Localized Spatio-Temporal Amplitude Chaos

We present numerical simulations of coupled Ginzburg-Landau equations describing parametrically excited waves which reveal persistent dynamics due to the occurrence of phase slips in sequential pairs, with the second phase slip quickly following and negating the first. Of particular interest are solutions where these double phase slips occur irregularly in space and time within a spatially localized region. An effective phase diffusion equation utilizing the long term phase conservation of the solution explains the localization of this new form of amplitude chaos.Comment: 4 pages incl. 5 figures uucompresse