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Updated: Jul 7, 2026

Three-dimensional Particle Tracking Velocimetry for Turbulence Applications: Case of a Jet Flow
Published on: February 27, 2016
Curvature fields, topology, and the dynamics of spatiotemporal chaos
Nicholas T Ouellette1, J P Gollub
1Department of Physics, Haverford College, Haverford, PA 19041, USA.
Abstract:
The curvature field is measured from tracer-particle trajectories in a two-dimensional fluid flow that exhibits spatiotemporal chaos and is used to extract the hyperbolic and elliptic points of the flow. These special points are pinned to the forcing when the driving is weak, but wander over the domain and interact in pairs at stronger driving, changing the local topology of the flow. Their behavior reveals a two-stage transition to spatiotemporal chaos: a gradual loss of spatial and temporal order followed by an abrupt onset of topological changes.
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