How is turbulence born: Spatiotemporal complexity and phase transition of transitional fluids

How a laminar flow becomes turbulence has been an unsolved problem for more than a century and is important in various industrial applications. Recently precise measurements in pipe flow experiments showed non-trivial spatiotemporal complexity at the onset of turbulence. Based on numerical evidence from the hydrodynamics equations, we discovered the surprising fact that the fluid behavior at the transition is governed by the emergent predator-prey dynamics of the important long-wavelength mode, leading to the mathematical prediction that the laminar-turbulent transition is analogous to an ecosystem on the edge of extinction. This prediction demonstrates that the laminar-turbulent transition is a non-equilibrium phase transition in the directed percolation universality class, and provides a unified picture of transition to turbulence emerging in systems ranging from turbulent convection to magnetohydrodynamics.

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