Turbulent dynamics of an intrinsically chaotic field

We have simulated the nonlinear dynamics of a two-dimensional lattice of damped-driven oscillators where the dynamical state of the isolated individual oscillator is chaotic. Harmonic coupling between these oscillators results in a very rich and complex spatiotemporal dynamics as a function of coupling strength. The dynamics is characterized by coherent clusters of energy moving randomly in a structureless background, growing in size with increasing coupling, and undergoing a sequence of "freezing transitions" until a coupling is reached where a single cluster dominates the lattice extent. The intricate interplay of coherent and random dynamics suggests a possible analogy with high Reynolds number turbulent flow. Extended self-similarity proposed for turbulent flows and applied to this problem indicates a universality in the dynamics. This suggests that the extension to other (more realistic) representations of physical systems may provide a fruitful paradigm for studying dynamical disorder in the real world. © 1994 The American Physical Society.