Retracting fronts induce spatiotemporal intermittency.
The intermittent route to spatiotemporal complexity is analyzed in simple models which display a subcritical bifurcation without hysteresis. A new type of spatiotemporal complex behavior is found, induced by fronts which "clean" the perturbations around an unstable state. The mechanism which generates these "retracting fronts" through nonlinear dispersion is analyzed in the frame of the complex Ginzburg-Landau equation. For sufficiently strong nonlinear dispersion the effects also occur for a supercritical bifurcation.
Coullet
Pierre
P
Institut Non Lineaire de Nice Sophia Antipolis, UMR 6618 CNRS, F-06560 Valbonne, FranceInstitut Universitaire de France, Valbonne, France.
Kramer
Lorenz
L