Period doubling route to chaos in Taylor-Green dynamo

Abstract

We perform spectral simulations of dynamo for magnetic Prandtl number of one with Taylor-Green forcing. We observe dynamo transition through a supercritical pitchfork bifurcation. Beyond the transition, the numerical simulations reveal complex dynamo states with windows of constant, periodic, quasiperiodic, and chaotic magnetic field configurations. For some forcing amplitudes, multiple attractors were obtained for different initial conditions. We show that one of the chaotic windows follows the period-doubling route to chaos.