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At least 109 records · Page 6

Utilization of normal mode initial conditions for detecting errors in the dynamics part of primitive equation global models

When a global atmospheric basic state has constant angular velocity and its temperature varies with altitude only, there exist normal mode solutions to the linearized global primitive equations. The use of these normal modes, which have known behavior in time, is superior to the use of the Rossby-Haurwitz wave as initial conditions for detecting errors in the dynamics part of primitive equation global models. With these initial conditions, integration through only one time step is sufficient to detect many formulation and coding errors. Other tests are still required for detecting problems of nonlinear instability and conservation of integral properties, however.

Chao, W. C.↗

Laboratory and theoretical models of planetary-scale instabilities and waves

Meteorologists and planetary astronomers interested in large-scale planetary and solar circulations recognize the importance of rotation and stratification in determining the character of these flows. The two outstanding problems of interest are: (1) the origins and nature of chaos in baroclinically unstable flows; and (2) the physical mechanisms responsible for high speed zonal winds and banding on the giant planets. The methods used to study these problems, and the insights gained, are useful in more general atmospheric and climate dynamic settings. Because the planetary curvature or beta-effect is crucial in the large scale nonlinear dynamics, the motions of rotating convecting liquids in spherical shells were studied using electrohydrodynamic polarization forces to generate radial gravity and centrally directed buoyancy forces in the laboratory. The Geophysical Fluid Flow Cell (GFFC) experiments performed on Spacelab 3 in 1985 were analyzed. The interpretation and extension of these results have led to the construction of efficient numerical models of rotating convection with an aim to understand the possible generation of zonal banding on Jupiter and the fate of banana cells in rapidly rotating convection as the heating is made strongly supercritical. Efforts to pose baroclinic wave experiments for future space missions using a modified version of the 1985 instrument have led us to develop theoretical and numerical models of baroclinic instability. Some surprising properties of both these models were discovered.

Hart, John E.↗

On error detection in the dynamics part of primitive equation models

Rossby-Haurwitz waves have been commonly employed as initial conditions for testing the dynamics part of global atmospheric models. Difficulties arise in connection with the primitive equation (PE) model. Chao and Geller (1982) have suggested that it would be better if normal mode solutions of the linearized primitive equations would be used as initial conditions. However, tests involving normal mode conditions are not adequate for the detection of errors in the nonlinear terms. The present investigation has the objective to review the study conducted by Chao and Geller and to provide tests for the nonlinear terms.

Chao, W. C.↗

The Role of Subsurface Flow on Evapotranspiration: A Global Sensitivity Analysis

Abstract Water resources are impacted by water‐energy balance fluxes at the land surface, most notably evapotranspiration ( ET ), the largest component of surface energy balance. While integrated hydrologic models show promise in quantifying the nonlinear dynamics at this interface, the model results are plagued by parametric uncertainties. Given the high computational demand of running multiple parameter spaces of these models, little is known about how these uncertainties propagate into land surface processes. In this work, we perform a global sensitivity analysis by computing Sobol and AMAE indices using a surrogate model constructed with a polynomial chaos expansion to assess the impacts of the subsurface physical properties on ET . We do so by modeling a semisynthetic test case. Our results show that the effects of vertical hydraulic conductivity, porosity, and the water retention curve parameter Van Genuchten α mainly control ET . However, we note that while evaporation ( E ) shows behavior similar to the ET with high sensitivity to the parameters controlling the flow in the unsaturated zone, transpiration ( T ) is very sensitive to the saturated zone parameters and groundwater flow, especially during periods without rain. Our results also show that heterogeneities in land cover impact the flow in the saturated zone. Furthermore, our work demonstrates that reduced‐order models can be developed to make integrated models more accessible for rigorous sensitivity analyses and calibration purposes.

Maina, Fadji Zaouna↗

Dynamics and transport in the boundary-driven dissipative Klein-Gordon chain

Motivated by experiments on chains of superconducting qubits, we consider the dynamics of a classical Klein-Gordon chain coupled to coherent driving and subject to dissipation solely at its boundaries. As the strength of the boundary driving is increased, this minimal classical model recovers the main features of the "dissipative phase transition" seen experimentally. Between the transmitting and non-transmitting regimes on either side of this transition (which support ballistic and diffusive energy transport respectively), we observe additional dynamical regimes of interest. These include a regime of superdiffusive energy transport at weaker driving strengths, together with a "dissipative breather crystal" regime at stronger driving strengths, which is characterized by emergent translation symmetry, ballistic energy transport, and coherent oscillations of a nonlinear normal mode. Here, we propose a non-local Lyapunov exponent as an experimentally measurable diagnostic of many-body chaos in this system, and more generally in open systems that are only coupled to an environment at their boundaries.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

Chaos in driven Alfven systems

The chaos in a one-dimensional system, which would be nonlinear stationary Alfven waves in the absence of an external driver, is characterized. The evolution equations are numerically integrated for the transverse wave magnetic field amplitude and phase using the derivative nonlinear Schroedinger equation (DNLS), including resistive wave damping and a long-wavelength monochromatic, circularly polarized driver. A Poincare map analysis shows that, for the nondissipative (Hamiltonian) case, the solutions near the phase space (soliton) separatrices of this system become chaotic as the driver amplitude increases, and 'strong' chaos appears when the driver amplitude is large. The dissipative system exhibits a wealth of dynamical behavior, including quasiperiodic orbits, period-doubling bifurcations leading to chaos, sudden transitions to chaos, and several types of strange attractors.

Hada, T.↗

Symmetry-breaking-induced rare fluctuations in a time-delay dynamic system

Inspired by the experimental and numerical findings, we study the dynamic instabilities of two coupled nonlinear delay differential equations that are used to describe the coherent oscillations between the top and bottom boundary layers in turbulent Rayleigh–Bénard convection. By introducing two sensitivity parameters for the instabilities of the top and bottom boundary layers, we find three different types of solutions, namely in-phase single-period oscillations, multi-period oscillations and chaos. The chaos solution contains rare but large amplitude fluctuations. The statistical properties of these fluctuations are consistent with those observed in the experiment for the massive eruption of thermal plumes, which causes random reversals of the large-scale circulation in turbulent Rayleigh–Bénard convection. Finally, our study thus provides new insights into the origin of rare massive eruptions and sudden changes of large-scale flow pattern that are often observed in convection systems of geophysical and astrophysical scales.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Chaotic /strange/ and periodic behavior in instability saturation by the oscillating two-stream instability

The nonlinear Schroedinger equation with linear growth and damping is truncated to three waves. The resulting system of nonlinear ordinary differential equations describes the excitation of linearly damped waves by the oscillating two-stream instability driven by a linearly unstable pump wave. This system represents a simple model for the nonlinear saturation of a linearly unstable wave. The model is examined analytically and numerically as a function of the dimensionless parameters of the system. It is found that the model can exhibit a wealth of characteristic dynamical behavior including stationary equilibria, Hopf bifurcations to periodic orbits, period doubling bifurcations, chaotic solutions characteristic of a strange attractor, tangent bifurcations from chaotic to periodic solutions, transient chaos, and hysteresis. Many of these features are shown to be explainable on the basis of one-dimensional maps. In the case of chaotic solutions, evidence for the presence of a strange attractor is provided by demonstrating Cantor set-like structure (i.e., scale invariance) in the surface of section.

Russell, D. A.↗

Nonlinear Dynamics of a Diffusing Interface

Excitation of two miscible-viscous liquids inside a bounded enclosure in a microgravity environment has shown the evolution of quasi-stationary waves of various modes for a range of parameters. We examine computationally the nonlinear dynamics of the system as the interface breakup and bifurcates to resonance structures typified by the Rayleigh-Taylor instability mechanism. Results show that when the mean steady field is much smaller than the amplitude of the sinusoidal excitation, the system behaves linearly, and growth of quasi-stationary waves occurs through the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability mechanism. However, as the amplitude of excitation increases, nonlinearity occurs through subharmonic bifurcation prior to broadband chaos.

Duval, Walter M. B.↗

Sextupole reduction via chaos suppression at NSLS-II

We revisit the nonlinear lattice design approach for the National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS-II) storage ring. By suppressing chaos, we identify alternative sextupole configurations to the original design, which relied on the conventional approach of simultaneously minimizing Resonance Driving Terms (RDTs) and Amplitude-Dependent Detuning (ADD). These alternatives achieve comparable performance while requiring fewer sextupoles. A detailed comparison of two representative solutions is presented and supported by experimental validation. Our results indicate that dynamic aperture correlates more strongly with global chaos than with individual RDTs, and that the importance of minimizing ADD may have been overstated in earlier design approach.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗

Sextupole reduction via chaos suppression at the National Synchrotron Light Source II

We revisit the nonlinear lattice design approach for the National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS-II) storage ring. By suppressing chaos, we identify alternative sextupole configurations to the original design, which relied on the conventional strategy of simultaneously minimizing resonance driving terms (RDTs) and amplitude-dependent detuning (ADD). These alternatives achieve comparable performance while requiring fewer sextupoles. A detailed comparison of two representative solutions is presented and supported by experimental validation. Our results show that the dynamic aperture correlates more strongly with global chaos than with individual RDTs, and that the importance of minimizing ADD may have been overstated in earlier design strategies.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Controlling Chaos Via Knowledge of Initial Condition for a Curved Structure

Nonlinear response of a flexible curved panel exhibiting bifurcation to fully developed chaos is demonstrated along with the sensitivity to small perturbation from the initial conditions. The response is determined from the measured time series at two fixed points. The panel is forced by an external nonharmonic multifrequency and monofrequency sound field. Using a low power time-continuous feedback control, carefully tuned at each initial condition, produces large long-term effects on the dynamics toward taming chaos. Without the knowledge of the initial conditions, control may be achieved by destructive interference. In this case, the control power is proportional to the loading power. Calculation of the correlation dimension and the estimation of positive Lyapunov exponents, in practice, are the proof of chaotic response.

Maestrello, L.↗

Equatorial Origin of the Observed Tropical Pacific Quasi-Decadal Variability From ENSO Nonlinearity

Quasi-decadal (QD) climate variability is detected in the tropical Pacific based on the recent 70 years of observations. This QD variability is identified in equatorial sea surface temperatures (SSTs), the pattern of which resembles the Central Pacific (CP) El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) but extends further meridionally to the northeastern subtropical Pacific. Whereas equatorial upper-ocean heat content and SSTs are in quadrature for ENSO, these two quantities are almost in phase on the QD timescale. Further analysis shows that nonlinear dynamical heating, primarily originating from strong El Niño events, tends to lead QD SSTs by a quarter of its dominant period (approximately 30 months) and shapes the dominant QD periodicity in observations. Here, our results suggest that the observed QD variability largely originates from ENSO nonlinearity and thus is fundamentally different from ENSO's oscillatory nature.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

On the Evolution-Dynamics of Tropical Ocean-Atmosphere Annual-Cycle Variability

The structure of ocean-atmosphere annual-cycle variability across the global tropics is extracted from the Comprehensive Ocean-Atmosphere Data Set (COADS) surface winds and SSTs, and oceanic heat-content simulation from a nonlinear shallow water model (forced by COADS wind stress) using the co-variance based rotated principal component analysis technique.

COADS↗

Detection of "noisy" chaos in a time series

Time series from biological system often displays fluctuations in the measured variables. Much effort has been directed at determining whether this variability reflects deterministic chaos, or whether it is merely "noise". The output from most biological systems is probably the result of both the internal dynamics of the systems, and the input to the system from the surroundings. This implies that the system should be viewed as a mixed system with both stochastic and deterministic components. We present a method that appears to be useful in deciding whether determinism is present in a time series, and if this determinism has chaotic attributes. The method relies on fitting a nonlinear autoregressive model to the time series followed by an estimation of the characteristic exponents of the model over the observed probability distribution of states for the system. The method is tested by computer simulations, and applied to heart rate variability data.

Non-NASA Center↗

A predictability study of Lorenz's 28-variable model as a dynamical system

The dynamics of error growth in a two-layer nonlinear quasi-geostrophic model has been studied to gain an understanding of the mathematical theory of atmospheric predictability. The growth of random errors of varying initial magnitudes has been studied, and the relation between this classical approach and the concepts of the nonlinear dynamical systems theory has been explored. The local and global growths of random errors have been expressed partly in terms of the properties of an error ellipsoid and the Liapunov exponents determined by linear error dynamics. The local growth of small errors is initially governed by several modes of the evolving error ellipsoid but soon becomes dominated by the longest axis. The average global growth of small errors is exponential with a growth rate consistent with the largest Liapunov exponent. The duration of the exponential growth phase depends on the initial magnitude of the errors. The subsequent large errors undergo a nonlinear growth with a steadily decreasing growth rate and attain saturation that defines the limit of predictability. The degree of chaos and the largest Liapunov exponent show considerable variation with change in the forcing, which implies that the time variation in the external forcing can introduce variable character to the predictability.

Krishnamurthy, V.↗

Transport, correlations, and chaos in a classical disordered anharmonic chain

Here, we explore transport properties in a disordered nonlinear chain of classical harmonic oscillators, and thereby identify a regime exhibiting behavior analogous to that seen in quantum many-body-localized systems. Through extensive numerical simulations of this system connected at its ends to heat baths at different temperatures, we computed the heat current and the temperature profile in the nonequilibrium steady state as a function of system size $\textit{N}$, disorder strength Δ, and temperature $\textit{T}$. The conductivity $κ_N$, obtained for finite length ($\textit{N}$), saturates to a value $κ_∞$ > 0 in the large $\textit{N}$ limit, for all values of disorder strength Δ and temperature $\textit{T}$ > 0. We show evidence that for any Δ > 0 the conductivity goes to zero faster than any power of $\textit{T}$ in the ($\textit{T}$/Δ) → 0 limit, and find that the form $κ_∞$ ~ $e^{{–B|\text{ln}(CΔ/T)|}^{3}}$ fits our data. This form has earlier been suggested by a theory based on the dynamics of multioscillator chaotic islands. The finite-size effect can be $κ_N < κ_∞$ due to boundary resistance when the bulk conductivity is high (the weak disorder case), or $κ_N > κ_∞$ due to direct bath-to-bath coupling through bulk localized modes when the bulk is weakly conducting (the strong disorder case). We also present results on equilibrium dynamical correlation functions and on the role of chaos on transport properties. Finally, we explore the differences in the growth and propagation of chaos in the weak and strong chaos regimes by studying the classical version of the out-of-time-ordered commutator.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

Ergodic and nonergodic many-body dynamics in strongly nonlinear lattices

The study of nonlinear oscillator chains in classical many-body dynamics has a storied history going back to the seminal work of Fermi et al. [Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory Report No. LA-1940, 1955 (unpublished)]. Here, we introduce a family of such systems which consist of chains of N harmonically coupled particles with the nonlinearity introduced by confining the motion of each individual particle to a box or stadium with hard walls. The stadia are arranged on a one-dimensional lattice but they individually do not have to be one dimensional, thus permitting the introduction of chaos already at the lattice scale. For the most part we study the case where the motion is entirely one dimensional. We find that the system exhibits a mixed phase space for any finite value of N . Computations of Lyapunov spectra at randomly picked phase space locations and a direct comparison between Hamiltonian evolution and phase space averages indicate that the regular regions of phase space are not significant at large system sizes. While the continuum limit of our model is itself a singular limit of the integrable sinh Gordon theory, we do not see any evidence for the kind of nonergodicity famously seen in the work of Fermi et al. Finally, we examine the chain with particles confined to two-dimensional stadia where the individual stadium is already chaotic and find a much more chaotic phase space at small system sizes.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗